זֶ֫רַע

…this is what the LORD says: ‘I will surely punish Shemaiah the Nehelamite and his descendants. He will have no one left among this people, nor will he see the good that I will bring to My people, declares the LORD, for he has preached rebellion against the LORD.’”

As for you, O Jacob My servant, do not be afraid, declares the LORD, and do not be dismayed, O Israel. For I will surely save you out of a distant place, your descendants from the land of their captivity! Jacob will return to quiet and ease, with no one to make him afraid.

“The days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and of beast.

“Only if this fixed order departed from My presence, declares the LORD, would Israel’s descendants ever cease to be a nation before Me.”

This is what the LORD says: “Only if the heavens above could be measured and the foundations of the earth below searched out would I reject all of Israel’s descendants because of all they have done,” declares the LORD.

As the hosts of heaven cannot be counted and as the sand on the seashore cannot be measured, so too will I multiply the descendants of My servant David and the Levites who minister before Me.”

…then I would also reject the descendants of Jacob and of My servant David, so as not to take from his descendants rulers over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. For I will restore them from captivity and will have compassion on them.”

Nor are you ever to build a house or sow seed or plant a vineyard. Those things are not for you. Instead, you must live in tents all your lives, so that you may live a long time in the land where you wander.’

Nor have we built houses in which to live, and we have not owned any vineyards or fields or crops.

I will punish him and his descendants and servants for their iniquity. I will bring on them, on the residents of Jerusalem, and on the men of Judah, all the calamity about which I warned them but they did not listen.”

In the seventh month, Ishmael son of Nethaniah, the son of Elishama, who was a member of the royal family and one of the king’s chief officers, came with ten men to Gedaliah son of Ahikam at Mizpah, and they ate a meal together there.

But you, O Jacob My servant, do not be afraid, and do not be dismayed, O Israel. For I will surely save you out of a distant place, your descendants from the land of their captivity! Jacob will return to quiet and ease, with no one to make him afraid.

But I will strip Esau bare; I will uncover his hiding places, and he will be unable to conceal himself. His descendants will be destroyed along with his relatives and neighbors, and he will be no more.

He took some of the seed of the land and planted it in fertile soil; he placed it by abundant waters and set it out like a willow.

He took a member of the royal family and made a covenant with him, putting him under oath. Then he carried away the leading men of the land,

…and tell them that this is what the Lord GOD says: On the day I chose Israel, I swore an oath to the descendants of the house of Jacob and made Myself known to them in the land of Egypt. With an uplifted hand I said to them, ‘I am the LORD your God.’

You are to give a young bull from the herd as a sin offering to the Levitical priests who are of the family of Zadok, who approach Me to minister before Me, declares the Lord GOD.

And they shall not marry a widow or a divorced woman, but must marry a virgin of the descendants of the house of Israel, or a widow of a priest.

Then the king ordered Ashpenaz, the chief of his court officials, to bring in some Israelites from the royal family and the nobility—

In the first year of Darius son of Xerxes, a Mede by descent, who was made ruler over the kingdom of the Chaldeans—

“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when the plowman will overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes, the sower of seed. The mountains will drip with sweet wine, with which all the hills will flow.

Is there still seed in the barn? The vine, the fig, the pomegranate, and the olive tree have not yet yielded fruit. But from this day on, I will bless you.”

“For the seed will be prosperous, the vine will yield its fruit, the ground will yield its produce, and the skies will give their dew. To the remnant of this people I will give all these things as an inheritance.

Behold, I will rebuke your descendants, and I will spread dung on your faces, the waste from your feasts, and you will be carried off with it.

Has not the LORD made them one, having a portion of the Spirit? And why one? Because He seeks godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit and do not break faith with the wife of your youth.