News Letter 5858-019
The 6th Year of the 4th Sabbatical Cycle
The 27th year of the 120th Jubilee Cycle
The 9th day of the 5th month 5858 years after the creation of Adam
The 4th Sabbatical Cycle after the 119th Jubilee Cycle
The Sabbatical Cycle of Sword, Famines, and Pestilence
The 3rd year Tithe

July 9, 2022

Shabbat Shalom Royal Family of Yehovah,

For Members Only

As I go to post this week’s Newsletter, I am about to finish the final pages of editing the first book in what we are calling The Elijah Trilogy. The first book is titled The Restoration of All Things. The second book is called The Abomination That Makes Desolate, and because of this book, Randy Cates and I had to go to Israel back in March of 2022 to check out certain aspects of this book, in person. The third book of the Elijah Trilogy is The 10 Days of Awe.

All three are written. I am just going over the final last 100 pages of this almost 400-page first book today. The second in the Trilogy is being edited, while the third needs more work to organize it.

I have spent a lot of money on various aspects of this Elijah Trilogy researching and writing, editing and re-editing and then editing again. The time invested in this effort by myself and many others to make it ready for you has been quite substantive.

At Sightedmoon.com we have had a few souls who have supported this work for years. People who not only prayed for this work but got up off their knees and actually went to the donation page and made a monthly pledge for many various amounts. They have quietly sent in a monthly donation to help us pay for the many things that we look after here. The cost of the website and maintaining it so you all have access to all our articles and teachings. The cost of zoom meetings each week. Most of you never see the cost that I have to pay with my family for doing this. But there is a great personal cost that I have had to pay for this work. And then many feel it is their right to attack and smear this work. We also support the cost of supporting other ministries in this work.

Creflo Dollar who teaches that the Old Testament laws are done away with finally figured out that if that is true, then the tithing laws are also done away with and he has now renounced tithing. At Sightedmoon.com we have been teaching that these same laws are to be kept today for our blessings, including the tithing laws of which we have never demanded you pay us, not feeling worthy of the high calling of the Levitical Priesthood. But we are more than worthy and I have all my work on the website for you to judge me by.

After much prayer and discussion with the executive board who council me, I have decided to make this book, The Restoration of All Things available only to those who are actively supporting this work with a donation of any amount each month. Most of you can afford and have a coffee every day. Just a plain old fashion coffee, not the Latte or with donuts, but just a coffee. It costs between $1 and $2 for that alone. That is $30 to $60 a month. If you have the Latte or with a donut or bagel, then that cost is over $5 a day and this is $150 a month. How much is the feeding of your mind worth which you have been able to enjoy here at sightedmoon.com for the past 17 years for free? How many new understandings have you learned here that you cannot learn anywhere else? How much is that worth? Surely more than a cup of coffee you are only going to pee out a few hours later.

If I can find your name on our supporter’s list by donating a monthly amount of any size, then you can have this book for free. Not only that but this entire Elijah Trilogy will be made available to you for free for standing with me all these years to make this work possible. It is a small gesture on my part to say Thank You for working with me all these years.

I am also going to offer the supporters of this work something else in a private email to them very soon. If you used to be a supporter of this work and have moved on, then to get a copy you need to become a supporter today for any amount. Just go to the donation page and set the amount you want to donate to this work each month and when I have completed each book, I will send only those on this list a copy.

The Elijah Trilogy, The Restoration of All Things, The Abomination That Makes Desolate, and the third book of the Elijah Trilogy, The 10 Days of Awe, are only going to be available to those who are actively supporting this work. I may make the books public later on, but for now, Membership is going to have this privilege.

If you do not know whether or not you’re a member then chances are you are not. Go to the donations page and start a monthly donation to qualify. It is that simple.

Are you Keeping the Third Tithe Year?

I want to remind and ask you all, have you remembered the widows and the orphans this year thus far? We are now in the 5th month. Many of you have supported this cause and I want to thank you on their behalf. I will keep reminding you about this responsibility for the entirety of this year. But this year does not end until Aviv, 2023. So we are not yet halfway.

2022 is the 6th year of the 4th Sabbatical cycle. And anyone who has been reading our website for any length of time will know how to prove beyond all doubt when the Sabbatical and Jubilee years are. Once you have done that then you will know when the 3rd and the 6th year of the Sabbatical Cycles are. We are told to raise a tithe every third year for the widow, the orphan and the Levite in your gates.

Here is a very severe warning from Yehovah to each of us.

Exo 22:21  You shall neither vex a stranger nor oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. You shall not afflict any widow or fatherless child. If you afflict them in any way, and they cry at all to Me, I will surely hear their cry. And My wrath shall become hot, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall be widows, and your sons fatherless.

We have now sent out  (as of June 20, 2022)  our 4th round of gift offerings that you have sent in for the widows and orphans. We have also supported a couple of other ministries that aid us in doing this work. This will fulfill the Levite part of the commandment. It was our desire to get the funds to them as we are told to do in Deuteronomy.

Deu 14:28  At the end of three years you shall bring forth all the tithe of your increase the same year, and shall lay it up inside your gates.

Deu 14:29  And the Levite, because he has no part nor inheritance with you, and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, who are inside your gates, shall come, and shall eat and be satisfied, so that Jehovah your God may bless you in all the work of your hand which you do.

We will soon be making another gift to them. If you do not know of anyone in the faith who is a widow or orphan then you can send it to us. Make sure you write me to let me know that those funds are for the widows and I will see to it they get it. But if you do not write me then I will not know where to apply your donation.

May each one of you who has given to this cause, be blessed as Boaz was blessed by Yehovah for his generosity. May each one of you be known for your support of the laws that will make the Kingdom of Yehovah strong and righteous. And may Yehovah bless you so that what you give is never missed and you never lack for your generosity towards Yehovah’s heart.

Shabbat Zoom Meeting

There are many people in need of fellowship and who are sitting at home on the Sabbath with no one to talk to or debate with. I want to encourage all of you to join us on Shabbat, and to invite others to come and join us as well. If the time is not convenient then you can listen to the teaching and the midrash after on our YouTube channel.

What are we doing and why do we teach this way?

We are going to discuss both sides of an issue and then let you choose. It is the work of the Ruach (Spirit) to direct and to teach you.

The medieval commentator Rashi wrote that the Hebrew word for wrestle (avek) implies that Jacob was “tied”, for the same word is used to describe knotted fringes in a Jewish prayer shawl, the tzitzityot. Rashi says, “thus is the manner of two people who struggle to overthrow each other, that one embraces the other and knots him with his arms”.

Our intellectual wrestling has been replaced by a different kind of struggle. We are Wrestling with Yehovah as we grapple with His Word. It is an intimate act, symbolizing a relationship in which Yehovah and I and you are bound together. My wrestling is a struggle to discover what Yehovah expects of us, and we are “tied” to the One who assists us in that struggle.

Today, many say Israel means “Champion of God”, or better — the “Wrestler of God”.

Our Torah sessions each Shabbat teaches you and encourages you to constantly challenge, question, argue against, as well as view alternative views and explanations of the Word. In other words, we are to “wrestle with the Word” to get to the truth. Jews worldwide believe that you need to wrestle with the Word and constantly challenge Dogma, Theology, and views or else you will never get to the Truth.

We are not like most churches where “The preacher talks and everyone listens.” We encourage everyone to participate, to question and to contribute what they know on the subject being discussed. We want you to be a champion wrestler of the Word of Yehovah. We want you to wear the title of Israel, knowing that you not only know but are capable of explaining why you know the Torah to be true with logic and facts.

We have a few rules though. Let others talk and listen. There is no discussion about UFO’s Nephilim, Vaccines or conspiracy-type subjects. We have people from around the world with different world views. Not everyone cares who is the President of any particular country. Treat each other with respect as Fellow wrestlers of the word. Some of our subjects are hard to understand and require you to be mature and if you do not know, then listen to gain knowledge and understanding and hopefully wisdom. The very things you are commanded to ask Yehovah for and He gives to those who ask.

Jas 1:5  But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and with no reproach, and it shall be given to him.

We hope you can invite those who want to keep Torah to come and join us by hitting the link below. It is almost like a Torah teaching fellowship talk show with people from around the world taking part and sharing their insights and understandings.

We start off with some music and then some prayers and it’s as though you were sitting around the kitchen back in Newfoundland having a cup of coffee and all of us enjoying each other’s company. I hope you will grace us with your company someday.

Sabbath services begin at 12:30 PM EDT where we will be doing prayers songs and teaching from this hour.

Shabbat Services will begin at about 1:15 pm Eastern.

We look forward to you joining our family and getting to know us as we get to know you.

Joseph Dumond is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Joseph Dumond’s Personal Meeting Room

Join Zoom Meeting

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Septennial Torah Portion

If you go to Torah Portion at our archived section, you can then go to the 6th year which is the 6th year of the Sabbatical Cycle, the one we are in now, as we state at the top of every News Letter. There you can scroll down to July 2, 2022, and see that this Shabbat we could very well be midrashing about:

Leviticus 9

Jeremiah 37-39

Proverbs 21

Acts 18

If you missed last week’s exciting discoveries as we studied that section you can go and watch past Shabbats on our media section.

In The Mail

Tamlyn Blamey

Shabbat shalom Joseph. I have in the past watched some of your videos that were given to me by my aunt (Annemarie D’unienville from South Africa ) and you scared the living daylights out of me. Lol. But I sat and thought and prayed about it and was trying to figuring things out anyway to cut a long story short, I’ve started watching your videos again. I’ve been watching your shabbat videos and the interviews with Cyrus and Mark and OH MY GOSH, mind is blown again and again. So I’ve started to plan now for the sabbatical year next year and rather excited about it. Well I’m waffling on now but I just want to say Joseph please please don’t stop what you are doing, I’m so grateful to Yehovah that he’s brought you in and taught you these things so you can share with us. Thank you, thank you so much Joseph. Just want to ask a small question how do i start to even teach or talk about these things to my fellow Christians so that they can understand? Have an awesome Shabbat further and may you be blessed.

One more question Joseph. Do you know where and how South Africa will feature in the upcoming events as there is a lot of talk about the USA and the UK so just wondering where would we fit into all this and lastly mind my ignorance but do you have a teaching on the mark of the beast? And what could it be? Is it a microchip?

We have two articles for you to read. The Mark of the Beast and The Mark of the Beast and the Mark of Yehovah.

Hitting a BRIC Wall

In Deuteronomy the first 14 verses, we are told how Yehovah will bless us, how He would bless Israel “IF” they obeyed Him.

Deu 28:1  And it will be, if you shall listen carefully to the voice of Jehovah your God, to observe and to do all His commandments which I command you today, Jehovah your God will set you on high above all nations of the earth.

Deu 28:2  And all these blessings shall come on you and overtake you, if you will listen to the voice of Jehovah your God.

Deu 28:3  You shall be blessed in the city, and be blessed in the field.

Deu 28:4  The fruit of your body shall be blessed, and the fruit of your ground, and the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your cows, and the flocks of your sheep.

Deu 28:5  Your basket and your store shall be blessed.

Deu 28:6  You shall be blessed when you come in, and blessed when you go out.

Deu 28:7  Jehovah shall cause your enemies that rise up against you to be stricken before your face. They shall come out against you one way, and flee before you seven ways.

Deu 28:8  Jehovah shall command the blessing on you in your storehouses, and all that you set your hand to. And He shall bless you in the land which Jehovah your God gives you.

Deu 28:9  Jehovah shall establish you a holy people to Himself, as He has sworn to you, if you shall keep the commandments of Jehovah your God and walk in His ways.

Deu 28:10  And all the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of Jehovah, and they shall be afraid of you.

Deu 28:11  And Jehovah shall prosper you in goods, in the fruit of your body, and in the fruit of your cattle, and in the fruit of your ground, in the land which Jehovah swore to your fathers to give you.

Deu 28:12  Jehovah shall open to you His good treasure, the heaven to give the rain to your land in its season, and to bless all the work of your hand. And you shall loan to many nations, and you shall not borrow.

Deu 28:13  And Jehovah shall make you the head, and not the tail. And you shall be always above, and you shall not be beneath, if you listen to the commandments of Jehovah your God, which I command you today, to observe and to do them.

Deu 28:14  And you shall not go aside from any of the words which I command you today, to the right hand or the left, to go after other gods to serve them.

We are also told similar things in Leviticus 26.

Lev 26:1  You shall make no idols to yourselves; and you shall not set up for yourselves graven images, or a memorial pillar. And you shall not set up any image of stone in your land in order to bow down to it. For I amJehovah your God.

Lev 26:2  You shall keep My sabbaths and revere My sanctuary. I am Jehovah.

Lev 26:3  If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments and do them,

Lev 26:4  then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.

Lev 26:5  And your threshing shall reach to the vintage, and the vintage shall reach to the sowing time. And you shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely.

Lev 26:6  And I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down and none shall make you afraid. And I will cause evil beasts to cease out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land.

Lev 26:7  And you shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword.

Lev 26:8  And five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight. And your enemies shall fall by the sword in front of you.

Lev 26:9  For I will have respect to you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and establish My covenant with you.

Lev 26:10  And you shall eat of the old provision, and clear away the old because of the new.

Lev 26:11  And I will set My tabernacle among you. And My soul shall not abhor you.

Lev 26:12  And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be My people.

Lev 26:13  I am Jehovah your God, who brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, from being their bondmen. And I have broken the bonds of your yoke, and made you go upright.

Yehovah is telling us just how much He was going to bless us if we obeyed. The greatness the USA, UK, Australia, and Canada enjoy today is not because we obeyed, but because of the promises, Yehovah made to Abraham.

I want to draw your attention to the last part of Deuteronomy.

Deu 28:12  Jehovah shall open to you His good treasure, the heaven to give the rain to your land in its season, and to bless all the work of your hand. And you shall loan to many nations, and you shall not borrow.

Deu 28:13  And Jehovah shall make you the head, and not the tail. And you shall be always above, and you shall not be beneath, if you listen to the commandments of Jehovah your God, which I command you today, to observe and to do them.

Deu 28:14  And you shall not go aside from any of the words which I command you today, to the right hand or the left, to go after other gods to serve them.

Now that you know just how much Yehovah will bless you if you obey, look what will happen to you when you do not obey.

Deu 28:43  The stranger within you shall get up above you very high, and you shall come down very low.

Deu 28:44  He shall loan to you, and you shall not loan to him. He shall be the head, and you shall be the tail.

Deu 28:45  And all these curses shall come on you, and shall pursue you and overtake you, until you are destroyed, because you did not listen to the voice of Jehovah your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you.

Deu 28:46  And they shall be on you for a sign and for a wonder, and on your seed forever.

Deu 28:47  Because you did not serve Jehovah your God with joyfulness and with gladness of heart for the abundance of all things;

Deu 28:48  therefore you shall serve your enemies which Jehovah shall send against you, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in the lack of all things. And he shall put a yoke of iron on your neck until he has destroyed you.

Deu 28:49  Jehovah shall bring a nation against you from far, from the end of the earth, as the eagle flies; a nation whose tongue you shall not understand,

Deu 28:50  a nation fierce of face who shall not regard the person of the old, nor show favor to the young.

If you read all of Deuteronomy 28, from verse 15 onwards about the curses, does it not sound like you’re reading the nightly news? It sure does and Leviticus 26:14 onward does too.

I have one more set of scriptures for you to ponder over. Johnathan Cahn uses this one quite a bit.

Isa 9:10  The bricks have fallen down, but we will build with cut stones; the sycamores are cut down, but we use cedars instead.

Isa 9:11  And Jehovah shall set up the foes of Rezin against him, and spur on his enemies;

Isa 9:12  the Syrians in front and the Philistines behind; and they shall devour Israel with open mouth. For all this His anger is not turned away, but His hand isstretched out still.

Isa 9:13  For the people do not turn to Him who strikes them, nor do they seek Jehovah of Hosts.

Isa 9:14  And Jehovah will cut off from Israel head and tail, branch and rush, in one day.

Isa 9:15  The elder and honorable, he is the head; and the prophet who teaches lies, he is the tail.

Isa 9:16  For the leaders of this people led them astray; and their guided ones are swallowed up.

Isa 9:17  For this the Lord shall not rejoice over their young men, nor shall He have mercy on their orphans and widows; for everyone is a hypocrite and an evildoer, and every mouth speaks foolishness. In all this His anger is not turned away, but His hand is stretched out still.

Yehovah did this to Israel which led to their destruction and the northern 10 tribes going into captivity. It is those same tribes today who are the leading GDP nations in the world and allied together are the most powerful. They form a significant part of both NATO and the G7. Not all of them but a part.

But….that is all about to change.

You are watching the prophecies of Yehovah happen in front of you in real-time. Do not miss this. The sanctions the USA has placed on certain nations, starting with Trump on China and now Biden against Russia, with over 30 nations joining them. All of this is helping to form BRICS. Brasil, Russia, India, China, And South Africa. And note Iran and Argentina want to join also. Are they going to call it BRICIAS?

The new BRICS alliance is a mortal threat to the West

A new global reserve currency will undermine US dollar supremacy

BY PHILIP PILKINGTON Wednesday, 29, June 2022
This week it was announced that Iran and Argentina had applied to join the BRICS.  The BRICS — which until recently has been made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — is a forum that allows countries outside of Western developed economies to forge alliances on economic issues. As it gets larger, its influence and economic importance grows.

Last week at one of the BRICS forums President Putin announced that Russia, alongside China and other BRICS nations, was getting ready to launch a new global reserve currency made up of a basket of BRICS currencies. If successful, such a reserve currency would be a direct threat to the currently dominant US dollar.

It is difficult not to read the two stories as part of the same general arc. Iran and Argentina are jumping on the bandwagon because they sense an opportunity to build an alternative alliance to Western-led globalisation. Meanwhile, the other BRICS members are inviting them on board because they smell blood because they see large economic weaknesses being exposed by the quick collapse of the Western sanctions against Russia.

Could a new trade bloc with its own reserve currency be a threat to the West and to US dollar dominance? Almost certainly. In their current form the BRICS make up around 31.5% of world GDP when adjusted on a purchasing power parity basis. With Iran and Argentina added, this rises to 33% of world GDP. This is a huge potential trade bloc, and 33% of global GDP is certainly enough to justify a reserve currency.

But beyond this, the potential for synergies between the countries is enormous. Taken together, the expanded BRICS countries currently produce around 26% of global oil output and 50% of iron ore production used to make steel. They produce around 40% of global corn production and 46% of global wheat production. If these were all traded in the new reserve currency, it would instantly become a cornerstone of the world economy.

Meanwhile, the US dollar is already sagging. At the beginning of June, the IMF released a report showing that the US dollar today makes up 59% of global reserves — a far cry from the 70% it made up in 1999. The report noted that central bank reserve managers were actively shifting their portfolios away from dollars and into non-traditional currencies.

Now imagine what that would look that if the BRICS launched its reserve currency — let’s call it the ‘BRIC’. Assume that the BRIC was held as a reserve roughly in line with the bloc’s importance in terms of global GDP and that it took a bite out of all other reserve holdings equally. The impact would look something like the chart below. As we can see, even this simple exercise shows that the BRIC would easily hold its own against the US dollar.

The changes that are taking place in the global economy are certainly the biggest that have been seen since 1945. Yet there is very little discussion of it in the press or in political circles. Are Western leaders planning for this? Do they have a strategy for this brave new world? We should hope so, as these upheavals could drastically impact Western living standards and our place in the world.

Lamentations & the 9th of Av

Let me share with you a little bit about a certain prophet named, Zechariah.

He was the Grandson of the priest Iddo,

Zec 1:1  In the eighth month, in the second year of Darius, the Word of Jehovah came to Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the prophet, saying,

This was October–November 520 BC. Then again in the same year in the 11th month, Zechariah has this other prophetic vision.

Zec 1:7  On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, it is the month Shebat, in the second year of Darius, the Word of Jehovah came to Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the prophet, saying,

Zec 1:8  I watched by night. And behold! a Man riding on a red horse, and He stood among the myrtle trees in the ravine. And behind Him were red, sorrel and white horses.

Zec 1:9  Then I said, O my lord, what are these? And the angel who talked with me said to me, I will show you what these are.

Zec 1:10  And the Man who stood among the myrtle trees answered and said, These are those whom Jehovah has sent to walk to and fro through the earth.

Zec 1:11  And they answered the Angel of Jehovah who stood among the myrtle trees, and said, We have walked to and fro through the earth, and behold, all the earth sits still and is at peace.

Zec 1:12  Then the Angel of Jehovah answered and said, O Jehovah of Hosts, how long will You not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah against which You have cursed these seventy years?

This is now 18 years after Babylon fell to Cyrus in 538 BC ending the 70-year captivity.

In Ezra, we read of the return from Babylon.

Ezr 2:1  And these are the sons of the province who went up out of the captivity, of those who had been exiled, whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had exiled to Babylon. And these came again to Jerusalem and Judah, each one to his city.

Ezr 2:2  These are the ones who came with Zerubbabel: Jeshua, Nehemiah, Seraiah, Reelaiah, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mispar, Bigvai, Rehum, Baanah. This is the number of the men of the people of the sons of Israel:

We read how Iddo, Zechariah’s grandfather was amongst those who first came back from the 70 years of captivity according to Nehemiah.

Neh 12:1  And these are the priests and the Levites who went up with Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua, Seraiah, Jeremiah, Ezra,

Neh 12:2  Amariah, Malluch, Hattush,

Neh 12:3  Shechaniah, Rehum, Meremoth,

Neh 12:4  Iddo, Ginnetho, Abijah,

Neh 12:5  Miamin, Maadiah, Bilgah,

Neh 12:6  Shemaiah, and Joiarib, Jedaiah,

Neh 12:7  Sallu, Amok, Hilkiah, Jedaiah. These were the chief of the priests and of their brothers in the days of Jeshua.

Neh 12:12  And in the days of Joiakim were priests, the chief of the fathers: from the house of Seraiah was Meraiah; from Jeremiah, Hananiah;

Neh 12:13  from Ezra, Meshullam; from Amariah, Jehohanan;

Neh 12:14  from Melicu, Jonathan; from Shebaniah, Joseph;

Neh 12:15  from Harim, Adna; from Meraioth, Helkai;

Neh 12:16  from Iddo, Zechariah; from Ginnethon, Meshullam;

Neh 12:17  from Abijah, Zichri; from Miniamin of Moadiah, Piltai;

Neh 12:18  from Bilgah, Shammua; from Shemaiah, Jehonathan;

Neh 12:19  and from Joiarib, Mattenai; from Jedaiah, Uzzi;

Neh 12:20  from Sallai, Kallai; from Amok, Eber;

Neh 12:21  from Hilkiah, Hashabiah; from Jedaiah, Nethaneel.

Zerubbabel’s Aliyah took place in 538 BC

The second wave of aliyah, known as Zerubbabel’s Aliyah, was led by Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, the grandson of Jeconiah, king of Judah, and a descendant of the house of David as well as Joshua the son of Jehozadak who was appointed as high priest (Kohen Gadol), in 538 BCE.

According to the account in the Book of Ezra, 42,360, not including servants or handmaids, made aliyah in this wave to Jerusalem and Judah. Among them, there were 24,144 ordinary men (57.12%) and 12,452 women and children (29.46%). There were also 4,289 priests (10.15%), 74 generic Levites (0.18%), 128 Singers (0.3%), 139 Gatekeepers (0.33%) (Singers and gatekeepers were specific roles of Levites in the holy temple in Jerusalem that had been passed from one generation to another), 392 Nethinim (0.93%), and 652 people who could not tell their fathers’ houses and their ancestry (1.54%). 90 other people (0.21%) appear to have joined in, to complete that count of 42,360. In addition 7,337 servants and handmaids joined in, boosting the population to 49,697. They also brought up their working animals: 736 horses (one for about every 68 people), 246 mules (one for every 202 people), 435 camels (one per 114 people), and 6,720 donkeys (one for every 7 people).[8] A smaller portion of this wave of aliyah was well-born, possibly one-sixth of the returnees, whereas the rest were of a lower class and poor. The returnees in this aliyah were of the Tribe of Judah, Tribe of Levi and the Tribe of Benjamin, and settled in their cities and places from before the destruction of the first temple, Solomon’s Temple, as many of them kept scribed documents indicating their land tenure status of land ownership in various places.

Due to the return of many single men, and the lack of Jewish single women, a phenomenon of mixed marriages with alien women developed. This wave of aliyahhad been on good terms with the Persian government, which allowed them religious autonomy. However, the economic situation was not well – there was a lack of infrastructures due to the consecutive ruins in the aftermath of the destruction of the First Temple, taxes and many housing needs, as well as consecutive years of harsh drought and other natural disasters that hit the land of Israel. At those times the Jews reinstituted the sacrificial offerings to God with the re-establishment of the altar in 538 BCE (כ”ה בכסלו, שנת ג’רכ”ב). This event was prior to the reconstruction of the newly emerging temple in Jerusalem, which restored the status of Jerusalem as the heart and soul of the Jewish people. The Samaritans made proposals for co-operation in the work, but their proposals were declined. Consequently the Jews suffered some harassment at the hands of the Samaritans. Despite the disruptions and delays the returnees managed to complete the construction of the holy temple in Jerusalem in 516 BCE.

The First Aliyah

Sheshbazzar’s aliyah (those claiming that Zerubbabel and Sheshbazzar were the same person, associate Sheshbazzar’s aliyah with Zerubbabel’s Aliyah), had occurred near after Cyrus’s Decree, in 538 BCE. Approximately 1,000 young Jews made aliya in what became known as Sheshbazzar’s Aliyah, out of the notion to redeem the land of Israel from its ruins and to re-establish the holy temple on the Temple Mount. This aliyah was named after its leader Sheshbazzar because most scholars have agreed that he is a descendant of the house of Jeconiah, king of Judah.

The Book of Ezra depicts Sheshbazzar’s Aliyah as a consent and encouragement of the Persian King Cyrus:

7 And King Cyrus took out all the vessels of the House of the Lord, which Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of Jerusalem and had placed them in the temple of his god;
8 Now Cyrus, the king of Persia, took them out by the hand of Mithredath the treasurer, and he counted them out to Sheshbazzar, the prince of Judah…
11 All the vessels of silver and gold were five thousand, four hundred; Sheshbazzar brought up [ He’ela / Aliyah ] everything when the exiles were brought up [ He’alot / Aliyah ] from Babylon to Jerusalem.

— Book of Ezra 1:7–8,11

Third Aliyah

The third aliyah was led by Ezra the scribe, in 458 BCE. Around 5,000 Jews were in this wave of returnees.

Nehemiah’s Aliyah

The fourth aliyah was led by Nehemiah the son of Hacaliah, in 445 BCE. Prior to that, he served as the royal cupbearer to the king of Persia and as Man of the Great Assembly. It is not clear how many returnees joined him, but the Book of Nehemiah depicts a strong army escort supplied by the king.

The time for these 4 Aliyahs takes place over a 93-year period of time.

Zechariah’s grandfather returned from Babylon, in Zerubbabel’s Aliyah in the year 538 BC. This was the year after the 70 years of captivity had ended. Zerubbbebal would have been a young grandson of Iddo in this Aliya.

Just imagine how exciting this would have been for them. This is going to be the story of some of you after 70 Jubilee Cycles have ended you will be in Jerusalem for the 7th Millennium of Rest. Think about you and your children and grandchildren making this Aliyah.

Zechariah’s name means Yehovah Remembers. Zechariah’s name was appropriate to the purpose of his prophecies. His book brims over with the hope that Yehovah would remember His promises to His people, even after all the time they spent outside the land. The prophet used a simple structure of eight visions (Zechariah 1:1–6:15), four messages (7:1–8:23), and two oracles (9:1–14:21) to anticipate the completion of the temple and, ultimately, the future reign of the Messiah from Jerusalem. Like many of the prophets, Zechariah saw isolated snapshots of the future; therefore, certain events that seem to occur one right after the other in Zechariah’s prophecy actually often have generations or even millennia between them.

The book of Zechariah contains the clearest and the largest number of messianic (about the Messiah) passages among the Minor Prophets. In that respect, it’s possible to think of the book of Zechariah as a kind of miniature book of Isaiah. Zechariah pictures Christ in both His first coming (Zechariah 9:9) and His second coming (9:10–10:12). Jesus will come, according to Zechariah, as Savior, Judge, and ultimately, as the righteous King ruling His people from Jerusalem (14:8–9).

Let’s now read about the joyful coming of our King according to Zechariah.

Zec 9:9  Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem; behold, your King comes to you. He is righteous and victorious, meek and riding on an ass, even on a colt, the son of an ass.

Zec 9:10  And I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem. And the battle bow shall be cut off, and He shall speak peace to the nations; and His dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.

Zec 9:11  You also, by the blood of Your covenant I have freed Your prisoners out of the pit in which is no water.

Zec 9:12  Turn to the stronghold, prisoners of hope; even today I declare that I will return to you double.

Zec 9:13  For I have bent Judah for me as a bow; I filled it with Ephraim, and I will stir up your sons, O Zion, against your sons, O Greece, and make you as the sword of a mighty man.

The Lord Will Save His People

Zec 9:14  And Jehovah shall be seen over them, and His arrow shall go forth like the lightning; and the Lord Jehovah shall blow the ram’s horn, and shall go out with the windstorms of the south.

Zec 9:15  Jehovah of Hosts shall defend them; and they shall devour and trample the slingstones. And they shall drink and be boisterous, as through wine. And they shall be filled like a bowl, and like the corners of the altar.

Zec 9:16  And Jehovah their God shall save them in that day as the flock of His people; for they are as stones of a crown, lifted up as a banner over His land.

Zec 9:17  For how great is its goodness and how great its beauty! Grain shall make the young men flourish, and new wine the virgins.

Zec 10:1  Ask rain from Jehovah in the time of the latter rain. Jehovah shall make storm clouds, and He gives them showers of rain, grass to everyone in the field.

Zec 10:2  For the family idols speak iniquity, and the diviners have seen a lie and have told false dreams. They comfort in vain; therefore they wandered like a flock; they were troubled because there was no shepherd.

Zec 10:3  My anger was kindled against the shepherds, and I will punish the he-goats; for Jehovah of Hosts has visited His flock the house of Judah, and has made them as His beautiful horse in battle.

Zec 10:4  Out of Him came the cornerstone; out of Him the nail; out of Him the battle bow; out of Him every oppressor together.

Zec 10:5  And they shall be like mighty ones who trample the mud of the streets in the battle. And they shall fight because Jehovah is with them, and they shall make the riders on horses ashamed.

Zec 10:6  And I will strengthen the house of Judah, and I will save the house of Joseph, and I will return to save them; for I have pity on them. And they shall be as though I had not cast them off; for I am Jehovah their God, and I will answer them.

Zec 10:7  And Ephraim shall be like a mighty one, and their heart shall rejoice as by wine. And their sons shall see and be glad; their heart shall rejoice in Jehovah.

Zec 10:8  I will hiss for them and gather them; for I have redeemed them. And they shall be many as they were many.

Zec 10:9  And I will sow them among the peoples, and they shall remember Me in the distances; and they shall live with their sons and return.

Zec 10:10  I will return them out of the land of Egypt, and I will gather them out of Assyria; and I will bring them into the land of Gilead and Lebanon; for room shall not be found for them.

Zec 10:11  And he shall pass through the sea of distress, and shall strike the waves in the sea; and all the depths of the Nile shall dry up. And the pride of Assyria shall be humbled, and the scepter of Egypt shall move away.

Zec 10:12  And I will strengthen them in Jehovah; and they shall walk up and down in His name, says Jehovah.

For those of you who do not know or realize, these scriptures you just read are almost the same as we read in Isaiah.

Isa 11:11  And it shall be in that day, the Lord shall again set His hand, the second time, to recover the remnant of His people that remains, from Assyria and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Ethiopia, and from Persia, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the coasts of the sea.

I share all of this in order to now share the following.

Zec 7:1  And it happened in the fourth year of King Darius, the Word of Jehovah came to Zechariah in the fourth of the ninth month, in Chislev.

He was given this prophecy on December 7, 518 BC.

Zec 8:19  So says Jehovah of Hosts: The fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth, shall be to the house of Judah for joy and gladness, and cheerful feasts. Therefore love truth and peace.

The fast of the 4th month is 17 of Tammuz.

The fast of Tammuz, according to Rabbi Akiva’s interpretation, is the fast mentioned in the Book of Zechariah as “the fast of the fourth [month]” (Zechariah 8:19). This refers to Tammuz, which is the fourth month of the Hebrew calendar.

According to the Mishnah,[2] five calamities befell the Jewish people on this day:

Moses broke the two tablets of stone on Mount Sinai;[5]
The daily tamid offering ceased to be brought;
During the Roman siege of Jerusalem, the city walls were breached, leading to the destruction of the Second Temple on Tisha B’Av;
Prior to Bar Kokhba’s revolt, Roman military leader Apostomus burned a Torah scroll;
An idol was erected in the Temple.
The Babylonian Talmud places the second and fifth tragedies in the First Temple period.[6]

The Book of Jeremiah (39.2, 52.6–7) states that the walls of Jerusalem during the First Temple were breached on the 9th of Tammuz. Accordingly, the Babylonian Talmud dates the third tragedy (breach of Jerusalem’s walls) to the Second Temple period.[6] However, the Jerusalem Talmud (Taanit IV, 5) states that in both eras the walls were breached on 17th Tammuz, and that the text in Jeremiah 39 is explained by stating that the Biblical record was “distorted”, apparently due to the troubled times.[7]

The Seventeenth of Tammuz occurs forty days after the Jewish holiday of Shavuot. Moses ascended Mount Sinai on Shavuot and remained there for forty days. The Children of Israel made the Golden Calf on the afternoon of the sixteenth of Tammuz when it seemed that Moses was not coming down when promised. Moses descended the next day (forty days by his count), saw that the Israelites were violating many of the laws he had received from God, and smashed the tablets.[8]

We just counted the days from when Moses went up the Mountain. He came down on the 23rd day of the month according to our understanding. As you read this remember when Zechariah is writing this.Almost 600 years before the second Temple is destroyed.

The fast of the 5th month is 9 Av.

Five calamities

According to the Mishnah (Taanit 4:6), five specific events occurred on the ninth of Av that warrant fasting:

The Twelve Spies sent by Moses to observe the land of Canaan returned from their mission. Only two of the spies, Joshua and Caleb, brought a positive report, while the others spoke disparagingly about the land. The majority report caused the Children of Israel to cry, panic and despair of ever entering the “Promised Land”. For this, they were punished by God that their generation would not enter the land.[4] The midrash quotes God as saying about this event, “You cried before me pointlessly, I will fix for you [this day as a day of] crying for the generations”,[5]alluding to the future misfortunes which occurred on the same date.
The First Temple built by King Solomon was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BCE, and the population of the Kingdom of Judah was sent into the Babylonian exile.[6] According to the Bible, the First Temple’s destruction began on the 7th of Av (2 Kings 25:8) and continued until the 10th (Jeremiah 52:12). According to the Talmud,[7] the actual destruction of the Temple began on the Ninth of Av, and it continued to burn throughout the Tenth of Av.
The Second Temple built by Ezra and Nehemiah was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE,[8] scattering the people of Judea and commencing the Jewish exile from the Holy Land.[6]
The Romans subsequently crushed Bar Kokhba’s revolt and destroyed the city of Betar, killing over 500,000 Jewish civilians (approximately 580,000) on August 4, 135 CE.[9]
Following the Bar Kokhba revolt, Roman commander Quintus Tineius Rufus plowed the site of the Temple in Jerusalem and the surrounding area, in 135 CE.[10]
Other calamities[edit]
Over time, Tisha B’Av has come to be a Jewish day of mourning, not only for these events, but also for later tragedies which occurred on or near the 9th of Av. References to some of these events appear in liturgy composed for Tisha B’Av (see below).

The First Crusade officially commenced on August 15, 1096 (Av 24, AM 4856), killing 10,000 Jews in its first month and destroying Jewish communities in France and the Rhineland.[9][11]
The Jews were expelled from England on July 18, 1290 (Av 9, AM 5050).[9]
The Jews were expelled from France on July 22, 1306 (Av 10, AM 5066).[12]
The Jews were expelled from Spain on July 31, 1492 (Av 7, AM 5252).[10]
Germany entered World War I on August 1–2, 1914 (Av 9–10, AM 5674), which caused massive upheaval in European Jewry and whose aftermath led to the Holocaust.[9]
On August 2, 1941 (Av 9, AM 5701), SS commander Heinrich Himmler formally received approval from the Nazi Party for “The Final Solution.” As a result, the Holocaust began during which almost one third of the world’s Jewish population perished.[13]
On July 23, 1942 (Av 9, AM 5702), began the mass deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto, en route to Treblinka.[13]
The AMIA bombing, of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, killed 85 and injured 300 on July 18, 1994 (10 Av, AM 5754).[14]
The 2005 Israeli disengagement from Gaza.[15][16]
While the Holocaust spanned a number of years, most religious communities use Tisha B’Av to mourn its 6,000,000 Jewish victims, in addition to or instead of the secular Holocaust Memorial Days. On Tisha B’Av, communities which otherwise do not modify the traditional prayer liturgy have added the recitation of special kinnot related to the Holocaust.

The fast of the 7th month

is Tzom Gedalia (usually observed on 3 Tishrei) although Yom Kippur also falls in the 7th month.

When Nebuchadnezzar, the king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, conquered Jerusalem, he killed or exiled most of its inhabitants and appointed Gedaliah[2] as governor of the now-Babylonian of province of Yehud.

However, Baalis, king of Ammon, was hostile and envious of the Judean remnant and sent a Judean, Yishmael Ben Netaniah, who was descended from the royal family of Judea, to assassinate Gedaliah. In the seventh month (Tishrei) of 582/1 BCE (some four to five years following the destruction of the Temple, although the exact year is unclear and subject to dispute; others claim the assassination took place in the same year as the destruction), a group of Jews led by Yishmael came to Gedaliah in the town of Mitzpa and were received cordially. Gedaliah had been warned of his guest’s murderous intent, but refused to believe his informants, believing their report was mere slander. Yishmael murdered Gedaliah, together with most of the Jews who had joined him and many Babylonians whom the Babylonian king had left with Gedaliah. The remaining Jews feared the vengeance of the Babylonian king (in view of the fact that the king’s chosen ruler, Gedaliah, had been killed by a Jew) and fled to Egypt.[3]

The events are recounted briefly in the Hebrew Bible in 2 Kings 25:25–26:

But it came to pass in the seventh month, that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, the son of Elishama, of the seed royal, came, and ten men with him, and smote Gedaliah, that he died, and the Jews and the Chaldeans that were with him at Mitzpah. And all the people, both small and great, and the captains of the forces, arose, and came to Egypt; for they were afraid of the Chaldeans.
A fuller account is in Jeremiah chapter 41,[4] where the murder of a group of envoys and the kidnapping of the gubernatorial staff and family are also related:

In the seventh month, Ishmael son of Nethaniah son of Elishama, of the royal family, one of the chief officers of the king, came with ten men to Gedaliah son of Ahikam, at Mizpah. As they ate bread together there at Mizpah, Ishmael son of Nethaniah and ten men with him got up and struck down Gedaliah son of Ahikam son Shaphan with the sword and killed him, because the king of Babylon had appointed him governor in the land. Ishmael also killed all the Judeans who were with Gedaliah at Mizpah, and the Chaldean soldiers who happened to be there.[5]

This fast of the 7th month that they claim is because of the assassination of Gedalia, strikes me as being very weak.

There is the Day of Atonement which is a very specific fast day and I would contend it is the Day of Atonement that Zechariah is speaking about which will be turned into the day of Rejoicing in the 7th Millennium. Consider the events of this day and what it is about. Once they are completed in 2033 Satan will be locked away and Peace will then be on this earth.

The fast of the 10th month is the 10th of Tevet.

The fasting is in mourning of the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylonia—an event that began on that date and ultimately culminated in the destruction of Solomon’s Temple (the First Temple), downfall of the Kingdom of Judah, and the Babylonian exile of the Jewish people.

According to II Kings,[2] on the 10th day of the 10th month (Tevet),[note 2] in the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign (588 BCE), Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king, began the siege of Jerusalem. Eighteen months later, on the 9th of Tammuz at the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah’s reign[note 3] (586 BCE), he broke through the city walls, later the Romans would similarly break through the walls of Jerusalem on the 17th of Tammuz.[3] The siege ended with the destruction of the Temple three weeks later, on the 9th of Av (Tisha B’Av), the end of the first Kingdoms and the elite of Judah taken in exile to Babylon. The tenth of Tevet is part of the cycle of three fasts connected with these events.[4]

These fasts commemorate events leading up to the destruction of both the First Temple and the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Zechariah is saying that when the Temple is rebuilt, these days of mourning will become days of celebration.

But today, in 2022, we are still going to read Lamentations which Jeremiah wrote after the destruction of the First Temple. It is not a commanded fast in Leviticus 23. You are free to choose what you want to do. Zechariah prophesied about this day and how it would be a day of rejoicing.

It is my opinion that to understand how great that rejoicing will be we must understand how sad this day is. Marking this day by fasting then also helps us to watch for the event that will be extremely joyful to happen on this day yet in the future. Near Future.

How Lonely Sits the City

Lam 1:1  How alone sits the city that was full of people! She has become like a widow, once great among the nations, a noblewoman among the nations, but nowhas become a tribute-payer.

Lam 1:2  She bitterly weeps in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks; among all her lovers, she has none to comfort her. All her friends have dealt deceitfully with her; they became her enemies.

Lam 1:3  Judah went into captivity because of affliction, and from great slavery. She dwells among the nations; she finds no rest; all her pursuers have overtaken her between the narrows.

Lam 1:4  The roads of Zion mourn without any going to the appointed feasts. All her gates are deserted; her priests sigh; her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.

Lam 1:5  Her enemies have become as chief; her haters are at ease; for Jehovah has afflicted her for the multitude of her sins. Her children have gone, captive before the enemy.

Lam 1:6  And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty has departed. Her rulers have become like bucks: they find no pasture, and they have gone without strength before the pursuer.

Lam 1:7  In the days of her affliction and her wandering Jerusalem remembered all her desirable things from previous days; when her people fell into the hand of the foe; and there is no ally for her. The foes saw her; they laughed at her annihilation.

Lam 1:8  Jerusalem has grievously sinned, therefore she has been removed. All knowing her despise her because they saw her nakedness; yea, she sighs and turns backward.

Lam 1:9  Her uncleanness is in her skirts; she did not remember her end, and has gone down astoundingly. There is no comforter for her. O Jehovah, behold my affliction, for the enemy has magnified himself.

Lam 1:10  The enemy has spread out his hand upon all her desirable things; for she has seen the nations enter her holy place, whom You commanded that they should not enter into Your congregation.

Lam 1:11  All her people sigh; they seek bread. They have given their desirable things for food to relieve the soul. See, O Jehovah, and look on me, for I have become vile.

Lam 1:12  Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Behold and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow which is done to me, with which Jehovah has afflicted me in the day of His fierce anger.

Lam 1:13  From above He has sent fire into my bones and it has laid them low. He has spread a net for my feet; He has turned me back; He has made me amazed and faint all the day.

Lam 1:14  The yoke of my transgressions is bound by His hand; they intertwine; they rise on my neck. He has made my strength to falter; Jehovah has delivered me into their hands. I am not able to rise up.

Lam 1:15  Jehovah has trampled all my mighty ones in my midst; He has called a gathering against me to crush my young men. Jehovah has trod the virgin daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.

Lam 1:16  For these I weep; my eye, my eye runs down with water, because the comforter who could refresh my soul is far from me. My sons are desolated because the enemy prevails.

Lam 1:17  Zion spreads forth her hands; none iscomforting to me; Jehovah has commanded concerning Jacob that his enemies should be all around him; Jerusalem has become as an impure thing among them.

Lam 1:18  Jehovah is righteous, for I have rebelled against His command. I beseech you, all peoples, hear and behold my sorrow. My virgins and my young men went into exile.

Lam 1:19  I called for my lovers, but they deceived me; my priests and my elders expired in the city while they sought food for them to bring back their life.

Lam 1:20  Behold, O Jehovah, for I am in trouble; my inward parts ferment; my heart is turned within me, for I have grievously rebelled. On the outside the sword bereaves; in the house it is as death.

Lam 1:21  They hear that I sigh; there is none to comfort me. All my enemies have heard my evil; they are glad that You have done it. You will bring the day that You have called, and they shall be like me.

Lam 1:22  Let all their wickedness come before You; and do to them as You have done to me for all my transgressions. For my sighs are many, and my heart isfaint.

The Lord Has Destroyed Without Pity

Lam 2:1  How the Lord has covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in His anger! He cast down the beauty of Israel from the heavens to the earth and remembered not His footstool in the day of His anger.

Lam 2:2  The Lord swallowed up all the dwelling-places of Jacob and has not pitied. In His wrath He has thrown down the strongholds of the daughter of Judah; He has brought them down to the ground. He has defiled the kingdom and its rulers.

Lam 2:3  He has cut off all the horn of Israel in His fierce anger; He has drawn back His right hand from before the enemy, and He burned against Jacob like flaming fire which devours all around.

Lam 2:4  He has bent His bow like an enemy; He stood with His right hand like an adversary, and killed all who were desirable to the eye in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion. He poured out His fury like fire.

Lam 2:5  Jehovah was like an enemy; He swallowed up Israel; He has swallowed up all her palaces, anddestroyed His strongholds. And He has increased mourning and weeping in the daughter of Judah.

Lam 2:6  And He violated His booth like a garden, anddestroyed His meeting places. Jehovah caused the meeting places and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion, and He despised the king and the priest in the fury of His anger.

Lam 2:7  Jehovah has cast off His altar; He rejected His sanctuary; He has given up the walls of her palaces into the hater’s hand. They gave a noise in the house of Jehovah, as a day of meeting.

Lam 2:8  Jehovah purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion; He has stretched out a line; He has not withdrawn His hand from swallowing, and He made rampart and wall lament; they languish together.

Lam 2:9  Her gates have sunk in the ground; He has destroyed and broken her bars. Her kings and her rulers are among the nations. The Law is no more; also her prophets also find no vision from Jehovah.

Lam 2:10  The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground and are silent; they send up dust on their heads; they gird on sackcloth. The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.

Lam 2:11  My eyes fail with tears; my inward parts ferment; my liver is poured on the ground for the ruin of the daughter of my people, in that the children and the babies faint in the streets of the city.

Lam 2:12  They say to their mothers, Where are grain and wine? In their fainting they are like the wounded in the streets of the city, in their pouring out their lives to their mothers’ bosom.

Lam 2:13  What can I testify for you? What thing shall I compare to you, O daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I equal to you, so that I may comfort you, O virgin daughter of Zion? For your break is great like the sea! Who can heal you?

Lam 2:14  Your prophets have seen false and foolish things for you, and they have not uncovered your iniquity, to turn away your captivity; but they have seen false oracles and seductions for you.

Lam 2:15  All who pass by clap their hands at you; they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city which they called the perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth?

Lam 2:16  All your enemies have opened their mouth against you; they hiss and gnash the teeth; they say, We have swallowed her up. Certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen.

Lam 2:17  Jehovah has done what He has purposed; He has fulfilled His Word which He commanded from the days of old. He has thrown down and not pitied. And He caused your hater to rejoice over you; He has set up the horn of your foes.

Lam 2:18  Their heart cried to Jehovah. O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a torrent day and night; give yourself no rest. Let not the daughter of your eye cease.

Lam 2:19  Arise, cry out in the night. At the beginning of the watches, pour out your heart like water before the face of Jehovah. Lift up your hands toward Him for the life of your children who are faint for hunger in the head of every street.

Lam 2:20  Behold, O Jehovah, and consider to whom You have done this. Shall the women eat their fruit, children of tender care? Shall the priest and the prophet be killed in the holy place of the Lord?

Lam 2:21  Young and old lie on the ground in the streets; my virgins and my young men have fallen by the sword. You have killed them in the day of Your anger; You have killed and not pitied.

Lam 2:22  You have called as in a solemn day my terrors all around, and there was not an escaped one or a survivor in the day of Jehovah’s anger. Those whom I have nursed and multiplied, my enemy has consumed.

Great Is Your Faithfulness

Lam 3:1  I the man have seen affliction by the rod of His wrath.

Lam 3:2  He has led me and made me go in darkness and not into light.

Lam 3:3  Surely He turned against me; He turns His hand all the day.

Lam 3:4  He has wasted my flesh and my skin; He has broken my bones.

Lam 3:5  He built against me and has circled me with bitterness and hardship.

Lam 3:6  He has made me live in dark places, like the dead of old.

Lam 3:7  He has set a fence around me and I cannot go out; He has made my bronze chain heavy.

Lam 3:8  Also when I cry and shout, He shuts out my prayer.

Lam 3:9  He walled up my ways with cut stone; my paths are crooked.

Lam 3:10  He was a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in secret places.

Lam 3:11  He has turned my ways aside and torn me in pieces. He made me desolate.

Lam 3:12  He has bent His bow and set me as a mark for the arrow.

Lam 3:13  He has caused the arrows of His quiver to enter into my inward parts.

Lam 3:14  I was a mockery to all my people, their song all the day.

Lam 3:15  He has filled me with bitterness and made me drunk with wormwood.

Lam 3:16  He also broke my teeth with gravel; He has covered me in the ashes.

Lam 3:17  And You cast off my soul from peace; I have forgotten blessedness.

Lam 3:18  And I said, My strength and my hope from Jehovah are gone.

Lam 3:19  Remember my affliction and my wandering, aswormwood and bitterness.

Lam 3:20  My soul vividly remembers and bows down on me.

Lam 3:21  I recall this to my mind; therefore I hope.

Lam 3:22  It is by Jehovah’s kindnesses that we are not destroyed, because His mercies never fail.

Lam 3:23  They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.

Lam 3:24  Jehovah is my portion, says my soul; therefore I will hope in Him.

Lam 3:25  Jehovah is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him.

Lam 3:26  It is good that one should hope for the salvation of Jehovah, even in silence.

Lam 3:27  It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.

Lam 3:28  He sits alone and keeps silence because He laid it on him.

Lam 3:29  He puts his mouth in the dust, if perhaps there may be hope.

Lam 3:30  He gives his cheek to Him who strikes him; he is filled with reproach.

Lam 3:31  For the Lord will not cast off forever;

Lam 3:32  for though He causes grief, yet He will have pity according to the multitude of His kindnesses.

Lam 3:33  For He does not afflict from His heart, nor does He grieve the sons of men;

Lam 3:34  to crush all the prisoners of the earth under His feet;

Lam 3:35  to turn aside the right of a man before the face of the Most High;

Lam 3:36  to pervert a man in his cause. This, Jehovah does not see.

Lam 3:37  Who is this who speaks, and it occurs, whenthe Lord does not command it?

Lam 3:38  From the mouth of the Most High does not go out the evil and the good.

Lam 3:39  What? Should mankind complain, a living man, because of his sins?

Lam 3:40  Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to Jehovah.

Lam 3:41  Let us lift up our heart and hands to God in Heaven.

Lam 3:42  We have sinned and have rebelled; You have not forgiven.

Lam 3:43  You have wrapped Yourself with anger and pursued us; You have slain; You have not pitied.

Lam 3:44  You have wrapped Yourself with a cloud from any prayer passing through.

Lam 3:45  You have made us as the sweepings and garbage in the midst of the peoples.

Lam 3:46  All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.

Lam 3:47  Fear and a pit have come to us, shame and ruin.

Lam 3:48  Streams of water run down my eye for the ruin of the daughter of my people.

Lam 3:49  My eye flows out and does not cease, from there being no intermission,

Lam 3:50  until Jehovah shall look down and behold from Heaven.

Lam 3:51  My eye pains my soul because of all the daughters of my city.

Lam 3:52  My haters have hunted me, like a bird, without cause.

Lam 3:53  They have cut off my life in the pit, and cast a stone at me.

Lam 3:54  Waters flowed over my head; then I said, I am cut off.

Lam 3:55  I called on Your name, O Jehovah, out of the lowest pit.

Lam 3:56  You have heard my voice; do not hide Your ear at my relief, at my cry for help.

Lam 3:57  You drew near in the day that I called on You; You said, Fear not.

Lam 3:58  O Lord, You strove for the causes of my soul; You redeemed my life.

Lam 3:59  O Jehovah, You have seen my wrong; judge my cause.

Lam 3:60  You have seen all their vengeance, all their plots against me.

Lam 3:61  You have heard their reproach, O Jehovah, all their plots against me;

Lam 3:62  the lips of those who rose up against me, and their scheming against me all the day.

Lam 3:63  Behold their sitting down and their rising up; I am their song.

Lam 3:64  You will return to them a recompense, O Jehovah, according to the work of their hands.

Lam 3:65  You will give them dullness of heart, Your curse on them.

Lam 3:66  Pursue and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of Jehovah.

The Holy Stones Lie Scattered

Lam 4:1  How the gold has become dim; the fine gold has changed! The stones of the sanctuary are poured out at the head of every street.

Lam 4:2  The precious sons of Zion are weighed against pure gold; how they are counted as earthen vessels, the work of a potter’s hand!

Lam 4:3  Even the jackals draw out the breast; they suckle their young ones. The daughter of my people iscruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.

Lam 4:4  The suckling’s tongue cleaves to his palate in thirst; the young children ask bread; there is no breaking to them.

Lam 4:5  Those who ate delicacies are desolate in the streets; those reared in scarlet embrace dunghills.

Lam 4:6  And the iniquity of the daughter of my people is heaped more than the sin of Sodom, overthrown as ina moment, and no hands spun on her.

Lam 4:7  Her Nazarites were purer than snow, whiter than milk; they were redder of bone than corals; their cuttings as lapis lazuli, azure blue.

Lam 4:8  Their appearance is blacker than soot; they are not recognized in the streets; their skin has shriveled on their bones; it is dried up; it has become like wood.

Lam 4:9  Better are the ones slain by the sword than the ones slain by hunger; those who pine away, pierced because the fruits of my fields failed.

Lam 4:10  The hands of the pitying women have boiled their own children; they became their food in the ruin of the daughter of my people.

Lam 4:11  Jehovah has fulfilled His fury; He has poured out His fierce anger, and has kindled a fire in Zion, and it has devoured its foundations.

Lam 4:12  The kings of the earth, and all the people of the world, would not have believed that the foe and the hater would go into Jerusalem’s gates.

Lam 4:13  For the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests, shedding the blood of the just in her midst,

Lam 4:14  they reeled blind in the streets; they are defiled with blood, so that not any can touch their clothes.

Lam 4:15  They cried to them, Depart! Unclean! Depart, depart! Touch not! Indeed they fled and reeled; they said among the nations, They will not continue to live there.

Lam 4:16  The face of Jehovah has shared them out; He will no longer look on them; they did not respect the persons of the priests; they did not favor the elders.

Lam 4:17  While we are, our eyes fail, for our help is vain; in our watching we have watched for a nation; it does not save.

Lam 4:18  They hunted our steps from going in our streets; our end was near, our days were fulfilled, for our end has come.

Lam 4:19  Our pursuers were swifter than the eagles of the heavens; they pursued us on the mountains, they lay in wait for us in the wilderness.

Lam 4:20  The breath of our nostrils, the anointed ofJehovah, was taken in their pits; of whom we said, In His shadow we shall live among the nations.

Lam 4:21  Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, who lives in the land of Uz. The cup also shall pass through unto you; you shall be drunken and stripped naked.

Lam 4:22  The punishment of your iniquity is fulfilled, O daughter of Zion; He will exile you no more. He will visit your iniquity, O daughter of Edom; He will expose your sins.

Restore Us to Yourself, O Lord

Lam 5:1  Remember, O Jehovah, what has been to us; look down and see our shame.

Lam 5:2  Our inheritance has turned to aliens, our houses to foreigners.

Lam 5:3  We are orphans and fatherless; our mothers areas widows.

Lam 5:4  We have drunk our water for silver; our wood comes for a price.

Lam 5:5  We are pursued on our necks; we grow weary; rest is not given to us.

Lam 5:6  We have given the hand to Egypt, to Assyria, to be satisfied with bread.

Lam 5:7  Our fathers have sinned and are not; we have borne their iniquities.

Lam 5:8  Servants rule over us; there is no rescuer out of their hand.

Lam 5:9  We bring in our bread with our souls, because of the sword of the wilderness.

Lam 5:10  Our skin is hot like an oven because of the fever heat of famine.

Lam 5:11  They raped the women in Zion, virgins in the cities of Judah.

Lam 5:12  Rulers were hanged by the hand; the faces of elders were not honored.

Lam 5:13  They took the young men to grind, and the youths stumbled at the wood.

Lam 5:14  The elders have ceased from the gate, the young men from their music.

Lam 5:15  The joy of our heart has ceased; our dance has turned into mourning.

Lam 5:16  The crown has fallen from our head. Woe now to us! For we have sinned.

Lam 5:17  Our heart is faint for this; our eyes are dim for these things.

Lam 5:18  On the mountain of Zion is laid waste, the foxes walk on it.

Lam 5:19  You, O Jehovah, remain forever; Your throne to generation and generation.

Lam 5:20  Why do You forget us forever and forsake us the length of days?

Lam 5:21  Return us to You, O Jehovah, and we will turn; renew our days as of old,

Lam 5:22  unless You have utterly rejected us; You are very angry against us.