Malachi 2 Cross References - NHEB

¹ "Now, you priests, this commandment is for you. ² If you will not listen, and if you will not lay it to heart, to give glory to my name," says the LORD of hosts, "then will I send the curse on you, and I will curse your blessings. Indeed, I have cursed them already, because you do not lay it to heart. ³ Look, I will rebuke your seed, and will spread dung on your faces, even the dung of your feasts; and you will be taken away with it. ⁴ You will know that I have sent this commandment to you, that my covenant may be with Levi," says the LORD of hosts. ⁵ "My covenant was with him of life and peace; and I gave them to him that he might be reverent toward me; and he was reverent toward me, and stood in awe of my name. ⁶ The law of truth was in his mouth, and unrighteousness was not found in his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and turned many away from iniquity. ⁷ For the priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth; for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts. ⁸ But you have turned aside out of the way. You have caused many to stumble in the law. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi," says the LORD of hosts. ⁹ "Therefore I have also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according to the way you have not kept my ways, but have had respect for persons in the law. ¹⁰ Do we not all have one father? Hasn't one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, profaning the covenant of our fathers? ¹¹ Judah has dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah has profaned the holiness of the LORD which he loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god. ¹² The LORD will cut off, to the man who does this, him who wakes and him who answers, out of the tents of Jacob, and him who offers an offering to the LORD of hosts. ¹³ This again you do: you cover the altar of the LORD with tears, with weeping, and with sighing, because he doesn't regard the offering any more, neither receives it with good will at your hand. ¹⁴ Yet you say, 'Why?' Because the LORD has been witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt treacherously, though she is your companion, and the wife of your covenant. ¹⁵ Did he not make one, although he had the residue of the Spirit? Why one? He sought a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth. ¹⁶ For I hate divorce," says the LORD, the God of Israel, "and him who covers his garment with violence." says the LORD of hosts. "Therefore take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously. ¹⁷ You have wearied the LORD with your words. Yet you say, 'How have we wearied him?' In that you say, 'Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the LORD, and he delights in them;' or 'Where is the God of justice?'

¹³ Then you shall tell them, 'Thus says the LORD, "Look, I will fill all the inhabitants of this land, even the kings who sit on David's throne, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, with drunkenness.

¹³ It is because of the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests, that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her.

¹ "Listen to this, you priests. Listen, house of Israel, and give ear, house of the king. For the judgment is against you; for you have been a snare at Mizpah, and a net spread on Tabor.

⁶ "A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If I am a father, then where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is the respect due me? says the LORD of hosts to you, priests, who despise my name. You say, 'How have we despised your name?'

¹⁴ "'But if you will not listen to me, and will not do all these commandments; ¹⁵ and if you shall reject my statutes, and if your soul abhors my ordinances, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant; ¹⁶ I also will do this to you: I will appoint terror over you, even consumption and fever, that shall consume the eyes, and make the soul to pine away; and you will sow your seed in vain, for your enemies will eat it. ¹⁷ I will set my face against you, and you will be struck before your enemies. Those who hate you will rule over you; and you will flee when no one pursues you. ¹⁸ "'If you in spite of these things will not listen to me, then I will chastise you seven times more for your sins. ¹⁹ I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your sky like iron, and your soil like bronze; ²⁰ and your strength will be spent in vain; for your land won't yield its increase, neither will the trees of the land yield their fruit. ²¹ "'If you walk contrary to me, and won't listen to me, then I will bring seven times more plagues on you according to your sins. ²² I will send the wild animals among you, which will rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and make you few in number; and your roads will become desolate. ²³ "'If by these things you won't be reformed to me, but will walk contrary to me; ²⁴ then I will also walk contrary to you; and I will strike you, even I, seven times for your sins. ²⁵ I will bring a sword upon you, that will execute the vengeance of the covenant; and you will be gathered together within your cities: and I will send the pestilence among you; and you will be delivered into the hand of the enemy. ²⁶ When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver your bread again by weight: and you shall eat, and not be satisfied. ²⁷ "'If you in spite of this won't listen to me, but walk contrary to me; ²⁸ then I will walk contrary to you in wrath; and I also will chastise you seven times for your sins. ²⁹ You will eat the flesh of your sons, and you will eat the flesh of your daughters. ³⁰ I will destroy your high places, and cut down your incense altars, and cast your dead bodies upon the bodies of your idols; and my soul will abhor you. ³¹ I will lay your cities waste, and will bring your sanctuaries to desolation, and I will not take delight in the sweet fragrance of your offerings. ³² I will bring the land into desolation; and your enemies that dwell in it will be astonished at it. ³³ I will scatter you among the nations, and I will draw out the sword after you: and your land will be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste. ³⁴ Then the land will enjoy its sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are in your enemies' land. Even then the land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths. ³⁵ As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, even the rest which it did not have in your sabbaths, when you lived on it. ³⁶ "'As for those of you who are left, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies: and the sound of a driven leaf will put them to flight; and they shall flee, as one flees from the sword; and they will fall when no one pursues. ³⁷ They will stumble over one another, as it were before the sword, when no one pursues: and you will have no power to stand before your enemies. ³⁸ You will perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies will eat you up. ³⁹ Those of you who are left will rot away in their iniquity in the lands of their enemies; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they rot away with them. ⁴⁰ "'If they confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, in their trespass which they trespassed against me, and also that, because they walked contrary to me, ⁴¹ I also walked contrary to them, and brought them into the land of their enemies: if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled, and they then accept the punishment of their iniquity; ⁴² then I will remember my covenant with Jacob; and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham; and I will remember the land. ⁴³ The land also will be left by them, and will enjoy its sabbaths while it lies desolate without them: and they will accept the punishment of their iniquity; because, even because they rejected my ordinances, and their soul abhorred my statutes. ⁴⁴ Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them; for I am the LORD their God; ⁴⁵ but I will for their sake remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am the LORD.'" ⁴⁶ These are the statutes, ordinances and laws, which the LORD made between him and the children of Israel in Mount Sinai by Moses.

¹⁵ But it shall come to pass, if you will not listen to the voice of the LORD your God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command you this day, that all these curses shall come on you, and overtake you. ¹⁶ You shall be cursed in the city, and you shall be cursed in the field. ¹⁷ Your basket and your kneading trough shall be cursed. ¹⁸ The fruit of your body, the fruit of your ground, the increase of your livestock, and the young of your flock shall be cursed. ¹⁹ You shall be cursed when you come in, and you shall be cursed when you go out. ²⁰ The LORD will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke, in all that you put your hand to do, until you are destroyed, and until you perish quickly; because of the evil of your doings, by which you have forsaken me. ²¹ The LORD will make the pestilence cling to you, until he has consumed you from off the land, where you go in to possess it. ²² The LORD will strike you with consumption, and with fever, and with inflammation, and with fiery heat, and with the sword, and with blight, and with mildew; and they shall pursue you until you perish. ²³ Your sky that is over your head shall be bronze, and the earth that is under you shall be iron. ²⁴ The LORD will make the rain of your land powder and dust: from the sky shall it come down on you, until you are destroyed. ²⁵ The LORD will cause you to be struck before your enemies; you shall go out one way against them, and shall flee seven ways before them: and you shall be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth. ²⁶ Your dead body shall be food to all birds of the sky, and to the animals of the earth; and there shall be none to frighten them away. ²⁷ The LORD will strike you with the boil of Egypt, and with the tumors, and with the scurvy, and with the itch, of which you can not be healed. ²⁸ The LORD will strike you with madness, and with blindness, and with astonishment of heart; ²⁹ and you shall grope at noonday, as the blind gropes in darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways: and you shall be only oppressed and robbed always, and there shall be none to save you. ³⁰ You shall betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her: you shall build a house, and you shall not dwell in it: you shall plant a vineyard, and shall not use its fruit. ³¹ Your ox shall be slain before your eyes, and you shall not eat of it: your donkey shall be violently taken away from before your face, and shall not be restored to you: your sheep shall be given to your enemies, and you shall have none to save you. ³² Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people; and your eyes shall look, and fail with longing for them all the day: and there shall be nothing in the power of your hand. ³³ The fruit of your ground, and all your labors, shall a nation which you do not know eat up; and you shall be only oppressed and crushed always; ³⁴ so that you shall be mad for the sight of your eyes which you shall see. ³⁵ The LORD will strike you in the knees, and in the legs, with a sore boil, of which you can not be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head. ³⁶ The LORD will bring you, and your king whom you shall set over you, to a nation that you have not known, you nor your fathers; and there you shall serve other gods, wood and stone. ³⁷ You shall become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all the peoples where the LORD shall lead you away. ³⁸ You shall carry much seed out into the field, and shall gather little in; for the locust shall consume it. ³⁹ You shall plant vineyards and dress them, but you shall neither drink of the wine, nor harvest; for the worm shall eat them. ⁴⁰ You shall have olive trees throughout all your borders, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil; for your olives shall drop off. ⁴¹ You shall father sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours; for they shall go into captivity. ⁴² All your trees and the fruit of your ground shall the locust possess. ⁴³ The foreigner who is in the midst of you shall mount up above you higher and higher; and you shall come down lower and lower. ⁴⁴ He shall lend to you, and you shall not lend to him: he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail. ⁴⁵ 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 the LORD your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded you: ⁴⁶ and they shall be on you for a sign and for a wonder, and on your descendants forever. ⁴⁷ Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, by reason of the abundance of all things; ⁴⁸ therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the LORD shall send against you, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things: and he shall put a yoke of iron on your neck, until he has destroyed you. ⁴⁹ The LORD will bring a nation against you from far away, from a distant land, as the eagle flies; a nation whose language you shall not understand; ⁵⁰ a nation of fierce facial expressions, that shall not respect the person of the old, nor show favor to the young, ⁵¹ and shall eat the fruit of your livestock, and the fruit of your ground, until you are destroyed; that also shall not leave you grain, new wine, or oil, the increase of your livestock, or the young of your flock, until they have caused you to perish. ⁵² They shall besiege you in all your gates, until your high and fortified walls come down, in which you trusted, throughout all your land; and they shall besiege you in all your gates throughout all your land, which the LORD your God has given you. ⁵³ You shall eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters, whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies shall distress you. ⁵⁴ The man who is tender among you, and very delicate, his eye shall be evil toward his brother, and toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the remnant of his children whom he has remaining; ⁵⁵ so that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he shall eat, because he has nothing left him, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy shall distress you in all your gates. ⁵⁶ The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not adventure to set the sole of her foot on the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom, and toward her son, and toward her daughter, ⁵⁷ and toward her young one who comes out from between her feet, and toward her children whom she shall bear; for she shall eat them for want of all things secretly, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy shall distress you in your gates. ⁵⁸ If you will not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and fearful name, The LORD your God; ⁵⁹ then the LORD will make your plagues extraordinary, and the plagues of your descendants, even great plagues, and of long continuance, and severe sicknesses, and of long continuance. ⁶⁰ He will bring on you again all the diseases of Egypt, which you were afraid of; and they shall cling to you. ⁶¹ Also every sickness, and every plague, which is not written in the book of this law, the LORD will bring them on you, until you are destroyed. ⁶² You shall be left few in number, whereas you were as the stars of the sky for multitude; because you did not listen to the voice of the LORD your God. ⁶³ It shall happen that as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you, so the LORD will rejoice over you to cause you to perish, and to destroy you; and you shall be plucked from off the land where you go in to possess it. ⁶⁴ The LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from the one end of the earth even to the other end of the earth; and there you shall serve other gods, which you have not known, you nor your fathers, even wood and stone. ⁶⁵ Among these nations you shall find no ease, and there shall be no rest for the sole of your foot: but the LORD will give you there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and pining of soul; ⁶⁶ and your life shall hang in doubt before you; and you shall fear night and day, and shall have no assurance of your life. ⁶⁷ In the morning you shall say, "I wish it were evening." and at evening you shall say, "I wish it were morning." for the fear of your heart which you shall fear, and for the sight of your eyes which you shall see. ⁶⁸ The LORD will bring you into Egypt again with ships, by the way of which I said to you, You shall see it no more again: and there you shall sell yourselves to your enemies for bondservants and for bondmaids, and no man shall buy you.

¹⁷ But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but shall be drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve them; ¹⁸ I declare to you this day that you will certainly perish; you will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.

¹⁹ Joshua said to Achan, "My son, please give glory to the LORD, the God of Israel, and make confession to him. Tell me now what you have done. Do not hide it from me."

²² Let their table before them become a snare, and a retribution, and a trap, and a stumbling block.

¹¹ But my people did not listen to my voice. Israel desired none of me. ¹² So I let them go after the stubbornness of their hearts, that they might walk in their own counsels.

⁷ When he is judged, let him come forth guilty. Let his prayer be turned into sin. ⁸ Let his days be few. Let another take his office. ⁹ Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. ¹⁰ Let his children be wandering beggars. Let them be sought from their ruins. ¹¹ Let the creditor seize all that he has. Let strangers plunder the fruit of his labor. ¹² Let there be none to extend kindness to him, neither let there be any to have pity on his fatherless children. ¹³ Let his posterity be cut off. In the generation following let their name be blotted out. ¹⁴ Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered by the LORD. Do not let the sin of his mother be blotted out. ¹⁵ Let them be before the LORD continually, that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth;

⁸ Now go, write it before them on a tablet, and inscribe it in a book, that it may be for the time to come forever and ever. ⁹ For it is a rebellious people, lying children, children who will not hear the law of the LORD; ¹⁰ who tell the seers, "Do not see for us," and to the prophets, "Do not prophesy to us right things. Tell us pleasant things. Prophesy deceits. ¹¹ Get out of the way. Turn aside from the path. Cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us." ¹² Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel, "Because you despise this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness, and rely on it; ¹³ therefore this iniquity shall be to you like a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking comes suddenly in an instant.

²⁵ Therefore he poured the fierceness of his anger on him, and the strength of battle; and it set him on fire all around, but he did not know; and it burned him, but he did not take it to heart."

⁷ You said, 'I shall be a mistress forever;' so that you did not lay these things to your heart, nor did you remember the latter end of it.

¹¹ "Of whom have you been afraid and in fear, that you lie, and have not remembered me, nor laid it to your heart? Haven't I held my peace even of long time, and you do not fear me?

¹⁶ Thus says the LORD, "Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, 'Where is the good way?' and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls." But they said, "We will not walk in it." ¹⁷ "I set watchmen over you, saying, 'Listen to the sound of the trumpet.'" But they said, "We will not listen." ¹⁸ "Therefore hear, you nations, and know, congregation, what will happen to them. ¹⁹ Hear, earth. 'Look, I will bring disaster on this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not listened to my words; and as for my law, they have rejected it. ²⁰ To what purpose comes there to me frankincense from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices pleasing to me.'

¹⁶ Give glory to the LORD your God, before he causes darkness, and before your feet stumble on the dark mountains, and, while you look for light, he turns it into the shadow of death, and makes it gross darkness. ¹⁷ But if you will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret for your pride; and my eye shall weep bitterly, and run down with tears, because the LORD's flock is taken captive."

⁴ The LORD has sent to you all his servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them (but you have not listened, nor inclined your ear to hear) ⁵ saying, 'Return now everyone from his evil way, and from the evil of your doings, and dwell in the land that the LORD has given to you and to your fathers, from of old and even forevermore; ⁶ and do not go after other gods to serve them or worship them, and do not provoke me to anger with the work of your hands; and I will do you no harm. ⁷ Yet you have not listened to me,' says the LORD; 'that you may provoke me to anger with the work of your hands to your own hurt.' ⁸ Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts: 'Because you have not heard my words, ⁹ look, I will send and take all the families of the north,' says the LORD, 'and I will send to Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against its inhabitants, and against all these nations around; and I will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and a hissing, and perpetual desolations.

¹⁷ Therefore thus says the LORD: "You have not listened to me, to proclaim liberty, every man to his brother, and every man to his neighbor: look, I proclaim to you a liberty, says the LORD, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine; and I will make you to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth.

⁷ But the house of Israel will not listen to you; for they will not listen to me: for all the house of Israel are obstinate and hard-hearted.

⁷ As they were multiplied, so they sinned against me. They have exchanged their glory into shame. ⁸ They feed on the sin of my people, and set their heart on their iniquity. ⁹ It will be, like people, like priest; and I will punish them for their ways, and will repay them for their deeds. ¹⁰ They will eat, and not have enough. They will play the prostitute, and will not increase; because they have abandoned giving to the LORD.

¹¹ As for Ephraim, their glory will fly away like a bird. There will be no birth, none with child, and no conception. ¹² Though they bring up their children, yet I will bereave them, so that not a man shall be left. Indeed, woe also to them when I depart from them. ¹³ I have seen Ephraim, like Tyre, planted in a pleasant place; but Ephraim will bring out his children to the murderer. ¹⁴ Give them—LORD what will you give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.

⁶ You have sown much, and bring in little. You eat, but you do not have enough. You drink, but you aren't filled with drink. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm, and he who earns wages earns wages to put them into a bag with holes in it."

⁹ "You looked for much, and, look, it came to little; and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why?" says the LORD of hosts, "Because of my house that lies waste, while each of you is busy with his own house.

¹⁶ Through all that time, when one came to a heap of twenty measures, there were only ten. When one came to the wine vat to draw out fifty, there were only twenty. ¹⁷ I struck you with blight, mildew, and hail in all the work of your hands; yet you did not turn to me,' says the LORD.

³ Therefore tell them: Thus says the LORD of hosts: 'Return to me,' says the LORD of hosts, 'and I will return to you,' says the LORD of hosts. ⁴ Do not be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets proclaimed, saying: Thus says the LORD of hosts, 'Return now from your evil ways, and from your evil doings;' but they did not hear, nor listen to me, says the LORD. ⁵ Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever? ⁶ But my words and my statutes, which I commanded by my Spirit to my servants the prophets, did they not overtake your fathers? Then they repented and said, 'Just as the LORD of hosts determined to do to us, according to our ways, and according to our practices, so he has dealt with us.'"

¹¹ But they refused to listen, and turned their backs, and stopped their ears, that they might not hear. ¹² Yes, they made their hearts as hard as flint, lest they might hear the law, and the words which the LORD of hosts had sent by his Spirit by the former prophets. Therefore great wrath came from the LORD of hosts. ¹³ It has come to pass that, as he called, and they refused to listen, so they will call, and I will not listen," said the LORD of hosts; ¹⁴ "but I will scatter them with a whirlwind among all the nations which they have not known. Thus the land was desolate after them, so that no man passed through nor returned: for they made the pleasant land desolate."

⁹ You are cursed with the curse; for you rob me, even this whole nation.

¹⁸ Were there none found who returned to give glory to God, except this stranger?"

²⁸ But Jesus, turning to them, said, "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. ²⁹ For look, the days are coming in which they will say, 'Blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.' ³⁰ Then they will begin to say to the mountains, 'Fall on us,' and to the hills, 'Cover us.'

¹¹ If anyone speaks, let it be as it were the very words of God. If anyone serves, let it be as of the strength which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.

⁷ He said with a loud voice, "Fear God, and give him glory; for the hour of his judgment has come. Worship him who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and the springs of waters."

⁹ People were scorched with great heat, and they blasphemed the name of God who has the power over these plagues. They did not repent and give him glory.

¹⁴ But the flesh of the bull, and its skin, and its dung, you shall burn with fire outside of the camp: it is a sin offering.

²⁹ Why do you look down on my sacrifice and on my offering, which I have commanded for my dwelling place, and honor your sons above me, to make yourselves fat with the best of all the offerings of Israel my people?' ³⁰ "Therefore the LORD, the God of Israel, says, 'I said indeed that your house, and the house of your father, should walk before me forever.' But now the LORD says, 'Be it far from me; for those who honor me I will honor, and those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed.

¹⁰ therefore, look, I will bring disaster on the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam everyone who urinates on a wall, he who is shut up and he who is left at large in Israel, and will utterly sweep away the house of Jeroboam, as a man sweeps away dung, until it is all gone.

³⁶ Therefore they came back, and told him. He said, "This is the word of the LORD, which he spoke by his servant Elijah the Tishbite, saying, 'The dogs will eat the flesh of Jezebel on the plot of Jezreel, ³⁷ and the body of Jezebel shall be as dung on the face of the field in the portion of Jezreel, so that they shall not say, "This is Jezebel."'"

⁷ yet he shall perish forever like his own dung. Those who have seen him shall say, 'Where is he?'

¹⁰ who perished at Endor, who became as dung for the earth.

² and they shall spread them before the sun, and the moon, and all the host of heaven, which they have loved, and which they have served, and after which they have walked, and which they have sought, and which they have worshiped: they shall not be gathered, nor be buried, they shall be for dung on the surface of the earth.

¹⁷ The seeds shrivel under their shovels. The storehouses are laid desolate. The granaries are broken down, for the grain has withered.

⁶ I will throw abominable filth on you, and make you vile, and will set you a spectacle.

⁹ "Therefore I have also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according to the way you have not kept my ways, but have had respect for persons in the law.

³⁵ It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile. It is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear."

¹³ Being defamed, we entreat. We are made as the filth of the world, the dirt wiped off by all, even until now.

¹² "Look, I have taken the Levites from among the children of Israel instead of all the firstborn who open the womb among the children of Israel; and the Levites shall be mine:

⁴⁵ "Take the Levites instead of all the firstborn among the children of Israel, and the livestock of the Levites instead of their livestock; and the Levites shall be mine. I am the LORD.

²⁵ Micaiah said, "Look, you will see on that day, when you go into an inner room to hide yourself."

²⁹ Remember them, my God, because they have defiled the priesthood, and the covenant of the priests, and of the Levites.

²⁴ Therefore the Lord, the LORD of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel, says: "Ah, I will get relief from my adversaries, and avenge myself of my enemies; ²⁵ and I will turn my hand against you, and I will purge away your dross, and I will take away all your slag. ²⁶ I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counselors as at the beginning. Afterward you shall be called 'The city of righteousness, a faithful town.' ²⁷ Zion shall be redeemed with justice, and her converts with righteousness. ²⁸ But the destruction of transgressors and sinners shall be together, and those who forsake the LORD shall be consumed.

¹¹ LORD, your hand is lifted up, yet they do not see; they see the zeal of the people, and are ashamed. Yes, fire will consume your adversaries.

⁹ Therefore, by this the iniquity of Jacob will be forgiven, and this is all the fruit of taking away his sin: that he makes all the stones of the altar as chalk stones that are beaten in pieces, so that the Asherim and the incense altars shall rise no more.

⁹ The prophet who prophesies of peace, when the word of the prophet shall happen, then shall the prophet be known, that the LORD has truly sent him."

³⁸ and I will purge out from among you the rebels, and those who disobey against me; I will bring them forth out of the land where they live, but they shall not enter into the land of Israel: and you shall know that I am the LORD." ³⁹ "'As for you, house of Israel, thus says the Lord GOD: "Go, serve everyone his idols, and hereafter also, if you will not listen to me; but my holy name you shall no more profane with your gifts, and with your idols. ⁴⁰ For in my holy mountain, in the mountain of the height of Israel," says the Lord GOD, "there shall all the house of Israel, all of them, serve me in the land: there will I accept them, and there will I require your offerings, and the first fruits of your offerings, with all your holy things. ⁴¹ As a pleasant aroma will I accept you, when I bring you out from the peoples, and gather you out of the countries in which you have been scattered; and I will be sanctified in you in the sight of the nations.

³³ When this comes to pass, (look, it comes), then shall they know that a prophet has been among them."

²³ I will magnify myself, and sanctify myself, and I will make myself known in the eyes of many nations; and they shall know that I am the LORD.'

⁹ "Thus says the Lord GOD, 'No foreigner, uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh, shall enter into my sanctuary, of any foreigners who are among the children of Israel. ¹⁰ But the Levites who went far from me, when Israel went astray, who went astray from me after their idols, they shall bear their iniquity. ¹¹ Yet they shall be ministers in my sanctuary, having oversight at the gates of the house, and ministering in the house: they shall kill the burnt offering and the sacrifice for the people, and they shall stand before them to minister to them. ¹² Because they ministered to them before their idols, and became a stumbling block of iniquity to the house of Israel; therefore have I lifted up my hand against them, says the Lord GOD, and they shall bear their iniquity. ¹³ They shall not come near to me, to execute the office of priest to me, nor to come near to any of my holy things, to the things that are most holy; but they shall bear their shame, and their abominations which they have committed. ¹⁴ Yet will I make them performers of the duty of the house, for all its service, and for all that shall be done in it. ¹⁵ "'But the Levitical priests, the sons of Zadok, who performed the duty of my sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray from me, they shall come near to me to minister to me; and they shall stand before me to offer to me the fat and the blood, says the Lord GOD: ¹⁶ they shall enter into my sanctuary, and they shall come near to my table, to minister to me, and they shall keep my instruction.

¹² His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will thoroughly cleanse his threshing floor. He will gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn up with unquenchable fire."

¹¹ 'Even the dust from your city that clings to our feet, we wipe off against you. Nevertheless know this, that the Kingdom of God is near.'

² Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away. Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.

²⁶ then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, "Whoever is on the LORD's side, come to me." All the sons of Levi gathered themselves together to him. ²⁷ He said to them, "Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, 'Every man put his sword on his thigh, and go back and forth from gate to gate throughout the camp, and every man kill his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor.'" ²⁸ The sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses: and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men. ²⁹ And Moses said, "You have been consecrated today to the LORD, each one at the cost of his son and of his brother, so he has given a blessing to you this day."

¹⁵ "After that, the Levites shall go in to do the service of the Tent of Meeting: and you shall cleanse them, and offer them as a wave offering.

⁹ Is it a small thing to you, that the God of Israel has separated you from the congregation of Israel, to bring you near to himself, to do the service of the tabernacle of the LORD, and to stand before the congregation to minister to them; ¹⁰ and that he has brought you near, and all your brothers the sons of Levi with you? and do you seek the priesthood also?

⁸ The LORD spoke to Aaron, "I, look, I have given you the command of my wave offerings, even all the holy things of the children of Israel; to you have I given them by reason of the anointing, and to your sons, as a portion forever. ⁹ This shall be yours of the most holy things from the fire: every offering of theirs, even every meal offering of theirs, and every sin offering of theirs, and every trespass offering of theirs, which they shall render to me, shall be most holy for you and for your sons. ¹⁰ You shall eat of it like the most holy things. Every male shall eat of it. It shall be holy to you. ¹¹ "This is yours, too: the wave offering of their gift, even all the wave offerings of the children of Israel. I have given them to you, and to your sons and to your daughters with you, as a portion forever. Everyone who is clean in your house shall eat of it. ¹² "All the best of the oil, and all the best of the vintage, and of the grain, the first fruits of them which they give to the LORD, to you have I given them. ¹³ The first-ripe fruits of all that is in their land, which they bring to the LORD, shall be yours; everyone who is clean in your house shall eat of it. ¹⁴ "Everything devoted in Israel shall be yours. ¹⁵ Everything that opens the womb, of all flesh which they offer to the LORD, both of man and animal shall be yours: nevertheless you shall surely redeem the firstborn of man, and you shall redeem the firstborn of unclean animals. ¹⁶ You shall redeem those who are to be redeemed of them from a month old, according to your estimation, for five shekels of money, after the shekel of the sanctuary, which is twenty gerahs. ¹⁷ "But you shall not redeem the firstborn of a cow, or the firstborn of a sheep, or the firstborn of a goat. They are holy. You shall sprinkle their blood on the altar, and shall burn their fat for an offering made by fire, for a pleasant aroma to the LORD. ¹⁸ Their flesh shall be yours, as the wave offering breast and as the right thigh, it shall be yours. ¹⁹ All the wave offerings of the holy things, which the children of Israel offer to the LORD, have I given you, and your sons and your daughters with you, as a portion forever: it is a covenant of salt forever before the LORD to you and to your descendants with you." ²⁰ The LORD said to Aaron, "You shall have no inheritance in their land, neither shall you have any portion among them. I am your portion and your inheritance among the children of Israel. ²¹ "To the descendants of Levi, look, I have given all the tithe in Israel for an inheritance, in return for their service which they serve, even the service of the Tent of Meeting. ²² Hereafter the children of Israel shall not come near the Tent of Meeting, lest they bear sin, and die. ²³ But the Levites shall do the service of the Tent of Meeting, and they shall bear their iniquity: it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations; and among the children of Israel they shall have no inheritance. ²⁴ For the tithe of the children of Israel, which they offer as a wave offering to the LORD, I have given to the Levites for an inheritance: therefore I have said to them, 'Among the children of Israel they shall have no inheritance.'"

¹² Therefore say, 'Look, I give to him my covenant of peace: ¹³ and it shall be to him, and to his descendants after him, the covenant of an everlasting priesthood; because he was jealous for his God, and made atonement for the children of Israel.'"

⁸ Of Levi he said, "Give to Levi your Thummim and your Urim to your faithful one, whom you proved at Massah, with whom you strove at the waters of Meribah; ⁹ who said of his father, and of his mother, 'I have not seen him;' Neither did he acknowledge his brothers, Nor did he know his own children: For they have observed your word, and keep your covenant. ¹⁰ They shall teach Jacob your ordinances, and Israel your law. They shall put incense before you, and whole burnt offering on your altar. ¹¹ LORD, bless his substance. Accept the work of his hands. Strike the loins of those who rise against him, of those who hate him, that they not rise again."

³⁰ Then Phinehas stood up, and executed judgment, so the plague was stopped. ³¹ That was credited to him for righteousness, for all generations to come.

²⁵ "'I will make with them a covenant of peace, and will cause evil animals to cease out of the land; and they shall dwell securely in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods.

²⁶ Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in their midst forevermore.

²¹ Hanoch lived one hundred and sixty-five years, and became the father of Methuselah. ²² Hanoch walked with God after he became the father of Methuselah two hundred years, and fathered sons and daughters. ²³ All the days of Hanoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. ²⁴ Hanoch walked with God, and then he was not there, for God took him.

⁹ These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time. Noah walked with God.

¹ When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said to him, "I am El Shaddai. Walk before me, and be blameless.

¹⁰ They shall teach Jacob your ordinances, and Israel your law. They shall put incense before you, and whole burnt offering on your altar.

³⁰ The mouth of the righteous talks of wisdom. His tongue speaks justice.

²² But if they had stood in my council, then had they caused my people to hear my words, and had turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings.

²³ They shall teach my people the difference between the holy and the common, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean. ²⁴ "'In a controversy they shall stand to judge; according to my ordinances shall they judge it: and they shall keep my laws and my statutes in all my appointed feasts; and they shall make my Sabbaths holy.

³ And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever.

⁶ My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you, that you may be no priest to me. Because you have forgotten your God's law, I will also forget your children.

¹⁶ They sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, "Teacher, we know that you are honest, and teach the way of God in truth, no matter whom you teach, for you are not partial to anyone.

¹⁴ When they had come, they asked him, "Teacher, we know that you are honest, and do not defer to anyone; for you are not partial to anyone, but truly teach the way of God. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?

⁶ They were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord.

¹⁶ He will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord, their God. ¹⁷ He will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, 'to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,' and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord."

²¹ They asked him, "Teacher, we know that you say and teach what is right, and are not partial to anyone, but truly teach the way of God.

¹⁸ to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in me.'

⁹ For they themselves report concerning us what kind of a reception we had from you; and how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, ¹⁰ and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come.

¹⁵ Do your best to present yourself approved by God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, properly handling the word of truth. ¹⁶ But shun empty chatter, for they will proceed further in ungodliness,

⁷ For the overseer must be blameless, as God's steward; not self-pleasing, not easily angered, not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for dishonest gain; ⁸ but given to hospitality, as a lover of good, sober minded, fair, holy, self-controlled; ⁹ holding to the faithful word which is according to the teaching, that he may be able to exhort in the sound doctrine, and to convict those who contradict him.

¹⁹ My brothers, if any among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back, ²⁰ let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death, and will cover a multitude of sins.

⁵ In their mouth was found no lie; they are blameless.

¹¹ and that you are to teach the children of Israel all the statutes which the LORD has spoken to them by Moses."

²¹ He shall stand before Eleazar the priest, who shall inquire for him by the judgment of the Urim before the LORD: at his word shall they go out, and at his word they shall come in, both he, and all the children of Israel with him, even all the congregation."

⁸ If there arises a matter too hard for you in judgment, between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy within your gates; then you shall arise, and go up to the place which the LORD your God shall choose; ⁹ and you shall come to the priests the Levites, and to the judge who shall be in those days: and you shall inquire; and they shall show you the sentence of judgment. ¹⁰ You shall do according to the tenor of the sentence which they shall show you from that place which the LORD shall choose; and you shall observe to do according to all that they shall teach you: ¹¹ according to the tenor of the law which they shall teach you, and according to the judgment which they shall tell you, you shall do; you shall not turn aside from the sentence which they shall show you, to the right hand, nor to the left.

⁵ The priests the sons of Levi shall come near; for them the LORD your God has chosen to minister to him, and to bless in the name of the LORD; and according to their word shall every controversy and every stroke be.

⁸ Be careful in a case of leprous disease, that you observe diligently, and do according to all that the priests the Levites shall teach you: as I commanded them, so you shall observe to do.

⁸ and with them the Levites, even Shemaiah, and Nethaniah, and Zebadiah, and Asahel, and Shemiramoth, and Jehonathan, and Adonijah, and Tobijah, and Tobadonijah, the Levites; and with them Elishama and Jehoram, the priests. ⁹ They taught in Judah, having the scroll of the law of the LORD with them; and they went about throughout all the cities of Judah, and taught among the people.

²² Hezekiah spoke comfortably to all the Levites who had good understanding in the service of the LORD. So they completed the seven days of the feast, offering sacrifices of peace offerings, and making confession to the LORD, the God of their fathers.

¹⁰ For Ezra had set his heart to seek the law of the LORD, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and ordinances.

² Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly, both men and women, and all who could hear with understanding, on the first day of the seventh month. ³ And he read it before the square that was before the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women, and of those who could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive to the scroll of the law. ⁴ Ezra the scribe stood on a pulpit of wood, which they had made for the purpose; and beside him stood Mattithiah, and Shema, and Anaiah, and Uriah, and Hilkiah, and Maaseiah, on his right hand; and on his left hand, Pedaiah, and Mishael, and Malchijah, and Hashum, and Hashbaddanah, Zechariah, and Meshullam. ⁵ Ezra opened the scroll in the sight of all the people; (for he was above all the people;) and when he opened it, all the people stood up: ⁶ and Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God. All the people answered, "Amen, Amen," with the lifting up of their hands. They bowed their heads, and worshiped the LORD with their faces to the ground. ⁷ Also Jeshua, and Bani, and Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, Pelaiah, the Levites, explained the law to the people, and the people stayed in their place. ⁸ They read in the scroll, in the law of God, distinctly; and they gave the sense, so that they understood the reading.

¹⁹ Who is blind, but my servant? Or who is as deaf as my messenger whom I send? Who is as blind as he who is at peace, and as blind as the LORD's servant?

²⁶ who confirms the word of his servant, and performs the counsel of his messengers; who says of Jerusalem, 'She will be inhabited;' and of the cities of Judah, 'They will be built,' and 'I will raise up its waste places;'

¹⁹ Therefore thus says the LORD, "If you return, then will I bring you again, that you may stand before me; and if you take forth the precious from the vile, you shall be as my mouth: they shall return to you, but you shall not return to them.

¹⁸ Then they said, "Come, and let us make plans against Jeremiah; for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, and let us strike him with the tongue, and let us not give heed to any of his words."

¹³ Then Haggai, the LORD's messenger, spoke the LORD's message to the people, saying, "I am with you," says the LORD.

¹¹ "Thus says the LORD of hosts: Ask now the priests concerning the law, saying, ¹² 'If someone carries holy meat in the fold of his garment, and with his fold touches bread, stew, wine, oil, or any food, will it become holy?'" The priests answered, "No." ¹³ Then Haggai said, "If one who is unclean by reason of a dead body touch any of these, will it be unclean?" The priests answered, "It will be unclean."

¹ "Look, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me; and the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, look, he comes." says the LORD of hosts.

²⁰ Truly, truly, I tell you, he who receives whomever I send, receives me; and he who receives me, receives him who sent me."

²¹ Jesus therefore said to them again, "Peace be to you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you."

¹⁷ She followed Paul and us, shouting, "These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation."

²⁰ We are therefore ambassadors on behalf of Christ, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

¹⁴ and though my condition was a trial to you, you did not despise nor reject; but you received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus.

⁸ Therefore he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given his Holy Spirit to you.

²⁴ The Lord's servant must not quarrel, but be gentle towards all, able to teach, patient, ²⁵ in gentleness correcting those who oppose him: perhaps God may give them repentance leading to a full knowledge of the truth,

¹⁵ He shall not profane his offspring among his people: for I am the LORD who sanctifies him.'"

¹⁷ The sin of the young men was very great before the LORD; for they despised the offering of the LORD.

²⁴ No, my sons, do not do this. For it is not a good report that I hear the people of the LORD spreading.

³⁰ "Therefore the LORD, the God of Israel, says, 'I said indeed that your house, and the house of your father, should walk before me forever.' But now the LORD says, 'Be it far from me; for those who honor me I will honor, and those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed.

²¹ For I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God.

¹⁰² I have not turned aside from your ordinances, for you have taught me.

¹⁶ For those who lead this people lead them astray; and those who are led by them are destroyed.

¹¹ Get out of the way. Turn aside from the path. Cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us."

¹³ transgressing and denying the LORD, and turning away from following our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.

⁵ Thus says the LORD: "Cursed is the man who trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm, and whose heart departs from the LORD.

¹³ LORD, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you shall be disappointed. Those who depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the LORD, the spring of living waters.

¹⁵ For my people have forgotten me, they have burned incense to false gods; and they have been made to stumble in their ways, in the ancient paths, to walk in byways, in a way not built up;

¹¹ for both prophet and priest are profane; yes, in my house have I found their wickedness," says the LORD. ¹² "Therefore their way shall be to them as slippery places in the darkness: they shall be driven on, and fall in it; for I will bring evil on them, even the year of their visitation," says the LORD. ¹³ "I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria; they prophesied by Baal, and caused my people Israel to err. ¹⁴ In the prophets of Jerusalem also I have seen a horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies; and they strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that none does return from his wickedness: they are all of them become to me as Sodom, and its inhabitants as Gomorrah. ¹⁵ Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts concerning the prophets: 'Look, I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink the water of gall; for from the prophets of Jerusalem is ungodliness gone forth into all the land.'

¹⁰ But the Levites who went far from me, when Israel went astray, who went astray from me after their idols, they shall bear their iniquity.

⁵ We have sinned, and have done what is wrong and wicked, and have rebelled, even turning aside from your commandments and from your ordinances. ⁶ Neither have we listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our leaders, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land.

⁵ "My covenant was with him of life and peace; and I gave them to him that he might be reverent toward me; and he was reverent toward me, and stood in awe of my name.

⁹ "Therefore I have also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according to the way you have not kept my ways, but have had respect for persons in the law. ¹⁰ Do we not all have one father? Hasn't one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, profaning the covenant of our fathers?

² "Why do your disciples disobey the Tradition of the Elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread." ³ And he answered them, "Why do you also disobey the commandment of God because of your tradition? ⁴ For God said, 'Honor your father and your mother,' and, 'He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him be put to death.' ⁵ But you say, 'Whoever may tell his father or his mother, "Whatever help you might otherwise have gotten from me is a gift devoted to God,"

⁴⁵ One of the Law scholars answered him, "Teacher, in saying this you insult us also." ⁴⁶ He said, "Woe to you Law scholars also. For you load people with burdens that are difficult to carry, and you yourselves won't even lift one finger to help carry those burdens.

¹⁹ and are confident that you yourself are a guide of the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, ²⁰ a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth. ²¹ You therefore who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? ²² You who say that one should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who detest idols, do you rob temples? ²³ You who boast in the law, do you, by disobeying the law, dishonor God? ²⁴ For because of you the name of God is blasphemed among the nations, just as it is written.

²¹ It is good to not eat meat, drink wine, or do anything by which your brother stumbles, or is offended, or is made weak.

¹² Beware, brothers, lest perhaps there be in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief, in falling away from the living God;

¹⁷ You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear the small and the great alike; you shall not be afraid of the face of man; for the judgment is God's. The case that is too hard for you, you shall bring to me, and I will hear it."

²⁸ Micaiah said, "If you return at all in peace, the LORD has not spoken by me." He said, "Listen, all you people."

⁷ The memory of the righteous is blessed, but the name of the wicked will rot.

¹⁵ Then the prophet Jeremiah said to Hananiah the prophet, "Hear now, Hananiah: the LORD has not sent you; but you make this people to trust in a lie. ¹⁶ Therefore thus says the LORD, 'Look, I will send you away from off the surface of the earth: this year you shall die, because you have spoken rebellion against the LORD.'"

²⁰ 'Hear therefore the word of the LORD, all you of the captivity, whom I have sent away from Jerusalem to Babylon.' ²¹ "Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, concerning Ahiab the son of Kolaiah, and concerning Zedekiah the son of Maaseiah, who prophesy a lie to you in my name: 'Look, I will deliver them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; and he shall kill them before your eyes; ²² and of them shall be taken up a curse by all the captives of Judah who are in Babylon, saying, "The LORD make you like Zedekiah and like Ahiab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire";

³¹ "Send to all them of the captivity, saying, 'Thus says the LORD concerning Shemaiah the Nehelamite: "Because Shemaiah has prophesied to you, and I did not send him, and he has caused you to trust in a lie; ³² therefore," thus says the LORD, "Look, I will punish Shemaiah the Nehelamite, and his offspring; he shall not have a man to dwell among this people, neither shall he see the good that I will do to my people, says the LORD, because he has spoken rebellion against the LORD."'"

¹² Look, when the wall has fallen, shall it not be said to you, 'Where is the plaster with which you have plastered it?' ¹³ "'"Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: I will even tear it with a stormy wind in my wrath; and there shall be an overflowing shower in my anger, and great hailstones in wrath to consume it. ¹⁴ So will I break down the wall that you have plastered with whitewash, and bring it down to the ground, so that its foundation shall be uncovered; and it shall fall, and you shall be consumed in its midst: and you shall know that I am the LORD. ¹⁵ Thus will I accomplish my wrath on the wall, and on those who have plastered it with whitewash; and I will tell you, 'The wall is no more, neither those who plastered it; ¹⁶ to wit, the prophets of Israel who prophesy concerning Jerusalem, and who see visions of peace for her, and there is no peace,'"' says the Lord GOD."

²¹ Your kerchiefs also will I tear, and deliver my people out of your hand, and they shall be no more in your hand to be hunted; and you shall know that I am the LORD.

² Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. ³ And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever.

⁶ "Therefore night is over you, with no vision, and it is dark to you, that you may not divine; and the sun will go down on the prophets, and the day will be black over them. ⁷ The seers shall be disappointed, and the diviners confounded. Yes, they shall all cover their lips; for there is no answer from God."

³ Look, I will rebuke your seed, and will spread dung on your faces, even the dung of your feasts; and you will be taken away with it.

⁸ But you have turned aside out of the way. You have caused many to stumble in the law. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi," says the LORD of hosts.

²¹ "You have heard that it was said to the ancient ones, 'Do not murder;' and whoever murders will be liable to judgment. ²² But I tell you, that everyone who is angry with his brother without a cause will be liable to judgment; and whoever will say to his brother, 'Raqa,' will be in danger of the council; and whoever will say, 'You fool,' will be in danger of the fire of hell.

²⁷ "You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery;' ²⁸ but I tell you that everyone who looks at a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.

³³ "Again you have heard that it was said to them of old time, 'Do not make false vows, but fulfill your vows to the Lord.' ³⁴ But I tell you, do not swear at all: neither by heaven, for it is the throne of God; ³⁵ nor by the earth, for it is the footstool of his feet; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. ³⁶ Neither should you swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. ³⁷ But let your 'Yes' be 'Yes' and your 'No' be 'No.' Whatever is more than these is of the evil one.

⁴³ "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.' ⁴⁴ But I tell you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you,

¹⁷ He said to him, "Why do you ask me about what is good? No one is good but one. But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments." ¹⁸ He said to him, "Which ones?" And Jesus said, "'Do not murder.' 'Do not commit adultery.' 'Do not steal.' 'Do not offer false testimony.'

¹⁶ "Woe to you, you blind guides, who say, 'Whoever swears by the temple, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple, he is obligated.' ¹⁷ You blind fools. For which is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctified the gold? ¹⁸ 'Whoever swears by the altar, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gift that is on it, he is obligated?' ¹⁹ You blind people. For which is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifies the gift? ²⁰ He therefore who swears by the altar, swears by it, and by everything on it. ²¹ He who swears by the temple, swears by it, and by him who dwells in it. ²² He who swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God, and by him who sits on it. ²³ "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the Law: justice, mercy, and faith. But you ought to have done these, and not to have left the other undone. ²⁴ You blind guides, who strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel.

⁸ "For you set aside the commandment of God, and hold tightly to human tradition." ⁹ He said to them, "Full well do you reject the commandment of God, that you may establish your tradition. ¹⁰ For Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother;' and, 'Anyone who speaks evil of father or mother, let him be put to death.' ¹¹ But you say, 'If anyone tells his father or mother, "Whatever profit you might have received from me is Corban, that is to say, given to God;"' ¹² then you no longer allow him to do anything for his father or his mother, ¹³ making void the word of God by your tradition, which you have handed down. You do many things like this." ¹⁴ And he called the crowd to himself again, and said to them, "Hear me, all of you, and understand.

²⁹ But he, desiring to justify himself, asked Jesus, "Who is my neighbor?"

⁴² But woe to you Pharisees. For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, but you bypass justice and the love of God. You ought to have done these, and not to have left the other undone.

⁴⁵ In the hearing of all the people, he said to his disciples, ⁴⁶ "Beware of the scribes, who like to walk in long robes, and love greetings in the marketplaces, the best seats in the synagogues, and the best places at feasts; ⁴⁷ who devour widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayers: these will receive greater condemnation."

⁷ What should we say then? Is the law sin? Absolutely not. However, I would not have known sin, except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness, unless the law had said, "Do not covet." ⁸ But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin is dead. ⁹ I was alive apart from the law once, but when the commandment came, sin became alive, and I died. ¹⁰ The commandment, which was for life, this I found to be for death;

⁶ But from those who were reputed to be important (whatever they were, it makes no difference to me; God shows no favoritism between people)—they, I say, who were respected imparted nothing to me,

⁵ Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice, and keep my covenant, then you shall be my own possession from among all peoples; for all the earth is mine;

¹⁰ He said, "Look, I make a covenant: before all your people I will do marvels, such as have not been worked in all the earth, nor in any nation; and all the people among which you are shall see the work of the LORD; for it is an awesome thing that I do with you. ¹¹ Observe that which I command you this day. Look, I drive out before you the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Hethite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite. ¹² Be careful, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you are going, lest it be for a snare in the midst of you: ¹³ but you shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and you shall cut down their Asherim; ¹⁴ for you shall worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God. ¹⁵ Do not make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, lest they play the prostitute after their gods, and sacrifice to their gods, and one call you and you eat of his sacrifice; ¹⁶ and you take of their daughters to your sons, and their daughters play the prostitute after their gods, and make your sons play the prostitute after their gods.

¹² Else if you do at all go back, and hold fast to the remnant of these nations, even these who remain among you, and make marriages with them, and go in to them, and they to you; ¹³ know for a certainty that the LORD your God will no longer drive these nations from out of your sight; but they shall be a snare and a trap to you, a scourge in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from off this good land which the LORD your God has given you. ¹⁴ Look, today I am going the way of all the earth. You know in all your hearts and in all your souls that not one thing has failed of all the good things which the LORD your God spoke concerning you. All have happened to you. Not one thing has failed of it. ¹⁵ It shall happen that as all the good things have come on you of which the LORD your God spoke to you, so the LORD will bring on you all the evil things, until he has destroyed you from off this good land which the LORD your God has given you, ¹⁶ when you disobey the covenant of the LORD your God, which he commanded you, and go and serve other gods, and bow down yourselves to them. Then the anger of the LORD will be kindled against you, and you will perish quickly from off the good land which he has given to you."

³ I took your father Abraham from beyond the River, and led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his descendants, and gave him Isaac.

¹¹ which you have commanded by your servants the prophets, saying, 'The land, to which you go to possess it, is an unclean land through the uncleanness of the peoples of the lands, through their abominations, which have filled it from one end to another with their filthiness. ¹² Now therefore do not give your daughters to their sons, neither take their daughters to your sons, nor seek their peace or their prosperity forever; that you may be strong, and eat the good of the land, and leave it for an inheritance to your children forever.' ¹³ "After all that has come on us for our evil deeds, and for our great guilt, since you, our God, have punished us less than our iniquities deserve, and have given us such a remnant, ¹⁴ shall we again break your commandments, and join in affinity with the peoples that do these abominations? Wouldn't you be angry with us until you had consumed us, so that there should be no remnant, nor any to escape?

² Shecaniah the son of Jehiel, one of the sons of Elam, answered Ezra, "We have trespassed against our God, and have married foreign women of the peoples of the land. Yet now there is hope for Israel concerning this thing. ³ Now therefore let us make a covenant with our God to put away all the wives, and such as are born of them, according to the counsel of my lord, and of those who tremble at the commandment of our God. Let it be done according to the law.

¹⁵ Did not he who made me in the womb make him? Did not the same one fashion us in the womb?

³ Know that the LORD, he is God. It is he who has made us, and we belong to him. We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

¹ But now thus says the LORD who created you, Jacob, and he who formed you, Israel: "Do not be afraid, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by your name. You are mine.

⁷ everyone who is called by my name, and whom I have created for my glory, whom I have formed, yes, whom I have made.'"

¹⁵ I am the LORD, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King."

² This is what the LORD who made you, and formed you from the womb, who will help you says: "Do not be afraid, Jacob my servant; and you, Jeshurun, whom I have chosen.

² Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who bore you; for when he was but one I called him, and I blessed him, and made him many.

¹⁶ For you are our Father, though Abraham doesn't know us, and Israel does not acknowledge us: you, LORD, are our Father; our Redeemer from everlasting is your name.

⁸ But now, LORD, you are our Father, and we are clay, and you are our potter; and we all are the work of your hands.

⁴ "Everyone be on guard against his neighbor, and do not trust any brother; for every brother is a deceiver, and every neighbor will go about with slanders. ⁵ Everyone deceives his neighbor, and does not speak the truth. They have taught their tongue to speak lies; they do evil, they do not cease so as to return.

²⁴ "Son of man, they who inhabit those waste places in the land of Israel speak, saying, 'Abraham was one, and he inherited the land: but we are many; the land is given us for inheritance.'

² The faithful have vanished from the earth, and there is no one upright among men. They all lie in wait for blood; every man hunts his brother with a net. ³ Their hands are on that which is evil to do it diligently. The ruler and judge ask for a bribe; and the powerful man dictates the evil desire of his soul. Thus they conspire together. ⁴ The best of them is like a brier. The most upright is worse than a thorn hedge. The day of your watchmen, even your visitation, has come; now is the time of their confusion. ⁵ Do not trust in a neighbor. Do not put confidence in a friend. With the woman lying in your embrace, be careful of the words of your mouth. ⁶ For the son dishonors the father, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man's enemies are the men of his own house.

¹¹ Judah has dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah has profaned the holiness of the LORD which he loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god.

¹⁴ Yet you say, 'Why?' Because the LORD has been witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt treacherously, though she is your companion, and the wife of your covenant. ¹⁵ Did he not make one, although he had the residue of the Spirit? Why one? He sought a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth.

⁹ and do not think to yourselves, 'We have Abraham for our father,' for I tell you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones.

²¹ "And brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father his child. Children will rise up against parents, and cause them to be put to death.

⁷³ the oath which he spoke to Abraham, our father,

⁸ Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance, and do not begin to say among yourselves, 'We have Abraham for our father;' for I tell you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones.

³⁹ They answered him, "Our father is Abraham." Jesus said to them, "If you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham.

⁴¹ You do the works of your father." They said to him, "We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father, God."

⁵³ Are you greater than our father, Abraham, who died? The prophets died. Who do you make yourself out to be?"

⁵⁶ Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day. He saw it, and was glad."

² He said, "Brothers and fathers, listen. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran,

²⁶ "The day following, he appeared to them as they fought, and urged them to be at peace again, saying, 'Men, you are brothers. Why do you wrong one another?'

²⁵ neither is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he himself gives to all life and breath, and all things.

¹ What then will we say that Abraham, our forefather, has found according to the flesh?

¹⁰ And not only that, but Rebekah also had conceived by one, our father Isaac.

⁶ But brother goes to law with brother, and that before unbelievers. ⁷ Actually, it is already a defeat for you, that you have lawsuits among yourselves. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? ⁸ No, but you yourselves do wrong, and cheat, and that against your brothers.

⁶ yet to us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we for him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we live through him.

⁶ one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all.

²⁵ Therefore, putting away falsehood, speak truth each one with his neighbor. For we are members of one another.

⁶ that no one should take advantage of and wrong a brother or sister in this matter; because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as also we forewarned you and testified.

⁹ Furthermore, we had earthly fathers who disciplined us, and we paid them respect. Should we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live?

¹ And it happened, when humankind began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, ² that God's sons saw that the daughters of humankind were beautiful, and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose.

⁵ Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice, and keep my covenant, then you shall be my own possession from among all peoples; for all the earth is mine; ⁶ and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation.' These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel."

²⁴ "'Do not defile yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations which I am casting out before you were defiled. ²⁵ The land was defiled: therefore I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out her inhabitants. ²⁶ You therefore shall keep my statutes and my ordinances, and shall not do any of these abominations; neither the native-born, nor the stranger who lives as a foreigner among you; ²⁷ (for all these abominations have the men of the land done, that were before you, and the land became defiled); ²⁸ that the land not vomit you out also, when you defile it, as it vomited out the nation that was before you. ²⁹ "'For whoever shall do any of these abominations, even the souls that do them shall be cut off from among their people. ³⁰ Therefore you shall keep my requirements, that you do not practice any of these abominable customs, which were practiced before you, and that you do not defile yourselves with them: I am the LORD your God.'"

²⁶ You shall be holy to me: for I, the LORD, am holy, and have set you apart from the peoples, that you should be mine.

³ neither shall you make marriages with them; your daughter you shall not give to his son, nor shall you take his daughter for your son. ⁴ For he will turn away your son from following me, that he may serve other gods; so the anger of the LORD would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly. ⁵ But you shall deal with them like this: you shall break down their altars, and dash their pillars in pieces, and cut down their Asherim, and burn their engraved images with fire. ⁶ For you are a holy people to the LORD your God: The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, above all peoples who are on the face of the earth.

² For you are a holy people to the LORD your God, and the LORD has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, above all peoples who are on the face of the earth.

²⁶ "There is none like God, Jeshurun, who rides on the heavens for your help, In his majesty through the skies. ²⁷ The God of old is a dwelling place. Underneath are the everlasting arms. He thrust out the enemy from before you, and said, 'Destroy.' ²⁸ Israel dwells in safety; the fountain of Jacob alone, In a land of grain and new wine. Yes, his heavens drop down dew. ²⁹ You are happy, Israel. Who is like you, a people saved by the LORD, the shield of your help, the sword of your excellency. Your enemies shall submit themselves to you. You shall tread on their high places."

⁶ and they took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their own daughters to their sons and served their gods.

¹ Now king Solomon loved women, and he took many foreign women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, and Hittites; ² of the nations concerning which the LORD said to the children of Israel, "You shall not go among them, neither shall they come among you; for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods." Solomon clung to these in love. ³ He had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred secondary wives; and his wives turned away his heart. ⁴ For it happened, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods; and his heart was not perfect with the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father. ⁵ For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. ⁶ Solomon did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, and did not completely follow after the LORD, as did David his father. ⁷ Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, on the mountain that is before Jerusalem, and for Milcom the abomination of the people of Ammon, and for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Sidonians. ⁸ So he did for all his foreign wives, who burnt incense and sacrificed to their gods.

¹ Now when these things were completed, the leaders approached me and said, "The people of Israel, and the priests and the Levites, have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands, following their abominations, even those of the Canaanites, the Hethites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. ² For they have taken of their daughters for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy seed have mixed themselves with the peoples of the lands. Indeed, the hand of the officials and leaders has been foremost in this trespass."

¹² Now therefore do not give your daughters to their sons, neither take their daughters to your sons, nor seek their peace or their prosperity forever; that you may be strong, and eat the good of the land, and leave it for an inheritance to your children forever.'

² Shecaniah the son of Jehiel, one of the sons of Elam, answered Ezra, "We have trespassed against our God, and have married foreign women of the peoples of the land. Yet now there is hope for Israel concerning this thing.

²³ In those days also saw I the Jews who had married women of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab: ²⁴ and their children spoke half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews' language, but according to the language of each people. ²⁵ I contended with them, and cursed them, and struck certain of them, and plucked off their hair, and made them swear by God, "You shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor take their daughters for your sons, or for yourselves. ²⁶ Did not Solomon king of Israel sin by these things? Yet among many nations was there no king like him, and he was beloved of his God, and God made him king over all Israel. Nevertheless foreign women caused even him to sin. ²⁷ Shall we then listen to you to do all this great evil, to trespass against our God in marrying foreign women?" ²⁸ One of the sons of Joiada, the son of Eliashib the high priest, was son-in-law to Sanballat the Horonite: therefore I chased him from me. ²⁹ Remember them, my God, because they have defiled the priesthood, and the covenant of the priests, and of the Levites.

²⁸ They joined themselves also to Baal Peor, and ate the sacrifices of the dead.

³⁴ They did not destroy the peoples, as the LORD commanded them, ³⁵ but mixed themselves with the nations, and learned their works. ³⁶ They served their idols, which became a snare to them. ³⁷ Yes, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons. ³⁸ They shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan. The land was polluted with blood. ³⁹ Thus were they defiled with their works, and prostituted themselves in their deeds.

³ Israel was holiness to the LORD, the first fruits of his increase. All who devour him shall be held guilty. Evil shall come on them,"' says the LORD."

⁷ I brought you into a plentiful land, to eat its fruit and its goodness; but when you entered, you defiled my land, and made my heritage an abomination. ⁸ The priests did not say, 'Where is the LORD?' And those who handle the law did not know me. The rulers also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked after things that do not profit.

²¹ Yet I had planted you a noble vine, wholly a right seed. How then have you turned into the degenerate branches of a foreign vine to me? ²² For though you wash yourself with lye, and use much soap, yet your iniquity is marked before me," says the Lord GOD.

⁷ I said after she had done all these things, 'She will return to me;' but she did not return; and her treacherous sister Judah saw it. ⁸ She saw that for all the causes for which faithless Israel had committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a bill of divorce, yet treacherous Judah, her sister, did not fear; but she also went and played the prostitute. ⁹ And it came to pass, through her casual prostitution, that the land was polluted, and she committed adultery with stone and wood.

¹⁰ and come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, "We are delivered"; that you may do all these abominations?

¹³ has given forth on interest, and has taken increase; shall he then live? He shall not live: he has done all these abominations; he shall surely die; his blood shall be on him.

¹¹ One has committed abomination with his neighbor's wife; and another has lewdly defiled his daughter-in-law; and another in you has humbled his sister, his father's daughter.

⁷ But they, like Adam, have broken the covenant. They were unfaithful to me, there.

¹⁴ Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers, for what fellowship have righteousness and iniquity? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? ¹⁵ What agreement has Christ with Belial? Or what portion has a believer with an unbeliever? ¹⁶ What agreement has a temple of God with idols? For we are a temple of the living God. Even as God said, "I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they will be my people." ¹⁷ Therefore, "'Go out from their midst, and be separate,' says the Lord, 'and touch no unclean thing,' and I will receive you. ¹⁸ "And I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters," says the Lord of hosts.

⁸ But to the cowards, and unbelieving, and detestable, and murderers, and sexually immoral, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death."

³ As time passed, it happened that Cain brought an offering to God from the fruit of the ground. ⁴ And Abel also brought some of the firstborn of his flock and of its fat. And God looked favorably on Abel and his offering, ⁵ but he did not look favorably on Cain and his offering. Cain was very angry, and the expression on his face fell.

²⁹ "'For whoever shall do any of these abominations, even the souls that do them shall be cut off from among their people.

³ I also will set my face against that person, and will cut him off from among his people because he has given of his offspring to Moloch, to defile my sanctuary, and to profane my holy name.

³⁰ "'But the person who acts defiantly, whether he is native-born or a foreigner, the same blasphemes God, and that person is to be cut off from among his people. ³¹ Because he has despised the word of the LORD, and has broken his commandment, that soul shall utterly be cut off; his iniquity shall be on him.'"

⁵ How goodly are your tents, Jacob, and your tents, Israel.

¹² Else if you do at all go back, and hold fast to the remnant of these nations, even these who remain among you, and make marriages with them, and go in to them, and they to you; ¹³ know for a certainty that the LORD your God will no longer drive these nations from out of your sight; but they shall be a snare and a trap to you, a scourge in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from off this good land which the LORD your God has given you.

³¹ Look, the days come, that I will cut off your descendants, and the descendants of your father's house, that there shall not be an old man in your house. ³² And you will see distress in the dwelling place, in all that he does good with Israel. And there will not be an old man in your house all the days. ³³ And the man of yours I do not cut off from my altar will be to cause his eyes to fail and to grieve his soul, and all the increase of your house will die by the sword of men. ³⁴ "'This shall be the sign to you, that shall come on your two sons, on Hophni and Phinehas: in one day they shall both die.

¹⁴ Therefore I have sworn to the house of Eli, that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be removed with sacrifice nor offering forever."

²² Samuel said, "Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Look, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. ²³ For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as idolatry and teraphim. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, he has also rejected you from being king."

⁸ And they cast lots, watch with watch, the small as the great, the teacher as the pupil.

¹⁸ Among the sons of the priests there were found who had married foreign women: of the sons of Jeshua, the son of Jozadak, and his brothers, Maaseiah, and Eliezer, and Jarib, and Gedaliah. ¹⁹ They gave their hand that they would put away their wives; and being guilty, they offered a ram of the flock for their guilt.

¹⁴ Therefore the LORD will cut off from Israel head and tail, palm branch and reed, in one day. ¹⁵ The elder and the honorable man is the head, and the prophet who teaches lies is the tail. ¹⁶ For those who lead this people lead them astray; and those who are led by them are destroyed.

¹ Look, the LORD makes the earth empty, makes it waste, turns it upside down, and scatters its inhabitants. ² It will be as with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the creditor, so with the debtor; as with the taker of interest, so with the giver of interest.

⁸ "For I, the LORD, love justice, and I hate robbery with iniquity; and I will give them their recompense in truth, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.

³ He who slaughters an ox is like one who strikes down a man; he who sacrifices a lamb, as he who breaks a dog's neck; he who offers an offering, as he who offers pig's blood; he who burns frankincense, as he who blesses an idol. Yes, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delights in their abominations:

¹⁰ They shall bear their iniquity: the iniquity of the prophet shall be even as the iniquity of him who seeks him;

²¹ 'Speak to the house of Israel, "Thus says the Lord GOD: Look, I will profane my sanctuary, the pride of your power, the desire of your eyes, and that which your soul pities; and your sons and your daughters whom you have left behind shall fall by the sword.

⁴ "Yet let no man bring a charge, neither let any man accuse; For your people are like those who bring charges against a priest. ⁵ You will stumble in the day, and the prophet will also stumble with you in the night; and I will destroy your mother.

²² Yes, though you offer me your burnt offerings and meal offerings, I will not accept them; neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat animals.

⁷ The LORD also will save the tents of Judah first, that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem not be magnified above Judah.

¹⁰ "Oh that there were one among you who would shut the doors, that you might not kindle fire on my altar in vain. I have no pleasure in you," says the LORD of hosts, "neither will I accept an offering at your hand.

¹⁰ Do we not all have one father? Hasn't one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, profaning the covenant of our fathers?

¹⁴ Leave them alone. They are blind guides of the blind. If the blind guide the blind, both will fall into a pit."

¹³ But evil people and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.

²⁰ The beast was taken, and with him the false prophet who worked the signs in his sight, with which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur.

⁹ Be careful lest there be a wicked thought in your heart, saying, "The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand"; and your eye be evil against your poor brother, and you give him nothing; and he cry to the LORD against you, and it be sin to you.

¹⁴ I have not eaten of it in my mourning, neither have I put away of it, being unclean, nor given of it for the dead: I have listened to the voice of the LORD my God; I have done according to all that you have commanded me.

⁹ So Hannah rose after eating and drinking in Shiloh, and stood before the LORD. Now Eli the priest was sitting on the seat by the doorpost of the temple of the LORD. ¹⁰ She was in bitterness of soul, and prayed to the LORD, and wept bitterly.

¹⁹ Tamar put ashes on her head, and tore her ornamented robe that she wore. And she put her hand on her head and went away, crying aloud as she went. ²⁰ Absalom her brother said to her, "Has Amnon your brother been with you? But now hold your peace, my sister. He is your brother. Do not take this thing to heart." So Tamar remained desolate in her brother Absalom's house.

⁹ Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest the scribe, and the Levites who taught the people, said to all the people, "This day is holy to the LORD your God. Do not mourn, nor weep." For all the people wept, when they heard the words of the law. ¹⁰ Then he said to them, "Go your way. Eat the fat, drink the sweet, and send portions to him for whom nothing is prepared; for this day is holy to our Lord. Do not be grieved; for the joy of the LORD is your strength." ¹¹ So the Levites stilled all the people, saying, "Hold your peace, for the day is holy; neither be grieved." ¹² All the people went their way to eat, and to drink, and to send portions, and to make great mirth, because they had understood the words that were declared to them.

³⁴ When he killed them, then they inquired after him. They returned and sought God earnestly. ³⁵ They remembered that God was their rock, the Most High God, their redeemer. ³⁶ But they flattered him with their mouth, and lied to him with their tongue. ³⁷ For their heart was not right with him, neither were they faithful in his covenant.

⁸ The sacrifice made by the wicked is an abomination to the LORD, but the prayer of the upright is his delight.

²⁷ The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination: how much more, when he brings it with a wicked mind.

¹ Then I returned and saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and look, the tears of those who were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter.

¹¹ "What are the multitude of your sacrifices to me?," says the LORD. "I have had enough of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed animals. I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of male goats. ¹² When you come to appear before me, who has required this at your hand, to trample my courts? ¹³ Bring no more vain offerings. Incense is an abomination to me; new moons, Sabbaths, and convocations: I can't bear with evil assemblies. ¹⁴ My soul hates your New Moons and your appointed feasts. They are a burden to me. I am weary of bearing them. ¹⁵ When you spread forth your hands, I will hide my eyes from you. Yes, when you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood.

²⁰ To what purpose comes there to me frankincense from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices pleasing to me.'

¹² When they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer burnt offering and meal offering, I will not accept them; but I will consume them by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence."

¹⁸ And God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him."

⁵⁰ If you mistreat my daughters, or if you take wives besides my daughters, although no one is with us; see, God is witness between me and you."

¹⁰ The elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, "The LORD shall be witness between us; surely according to your word so will we do."

⁵ He said to them, "The LORD is witness against you, and his anointed is witness this day, that you have not found anything in my hand." They said, "He is witness."

¹⁷ who forsakes the friend of her youth, and forgets the covenant of her God:

¹⁸ Let your spring be blessed. Rejoice in the wife of your youth. ¹⁹ A loving doe and a graceful deer—let her breasts satisfy you at all times. Be captivated always with her love.

²⁰ "So is the way of an adulterous woman: she eats and wipes her mouth, and says, 'I have done nothing wrong.'

⁹ Live joyfully with the wife whom you love all the days of your life of vanity, which he has given you under the sun, all your days of vanity: for that is your portion in life, and in your labor in which you labor under the sun.

¹⁵ Look, you are beautiful, my love. Look, you are beautiful. Your eyes are doves.

⁶ For the LORD has called you as a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, even a wife of youth, when she is cast off," says your God.

³ 'Why have we fasted,' say they, 'and you do not see? Why have we afflicted our soul, and you take no knowledge?' "Look, in the day of your fast you find pleasure, and exact all your labors.

¹² Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No. They were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore shall they fall among those who fall; in the time of their visitation they shall be cast down, says the LORD.

⁵ Then they said to Jeremiah, "The LORD be a true and faithful witness among us, if we do not do according to all the word with which the LORD your God shall send you to us.

⁸ "'Now when I passed by you, and looked at you, look, your time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over you, and covered your nakedness: yes, I swore to you, and entered into a covenant with you,' says the Lord GOD, 'and you became mine.

² Hear, you peoples, all of you. Listen, O earth, and all that is in it: and let the Lord GOD be witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple.

⁶ "A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If I am a father, then where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is the respect due me? says the LORD of hosts to you, priests, who despise my name. You say, 'How have we despised your name?' ⁷ You offer defiled bread on my altar. You say, 'How have we defiled you?' In that you say, 'The LORD's table is despised, and its fruit, its food, is despised.'

¹⁵ Did he not make one, although he had the residue of the Spirit? Why one? He sought a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth.

⁵ I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against the perjurers, and against those who oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and who deprive the foreigner of justice, and do not fear me," says the LORD of hosts.

⁸ Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. But you say, 'How have we robbed you?' In tithes and offerings.

²⁷ And God created humankind in his own image. In God's image he created him; male and female he created them.

⁷ And God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.

²⁰ And the man gave names to all the tame animals, and to all the flying creatures of the sky, and to every wild animal; but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. ²¹ So God caused a deep sleep to fall on the man, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh at that place. ²² And the rib that God had taken from the man he fashioned into a woman and brought her to the man. ²³ And the man said, "This at last is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. She will be called Woman, because this one was taken out of Man." ²⁴ Therefore a man will leave his father and his mother, and will join with his wife, and the two will become one flesh.

² that God's sons saw that the daughters of humankind were beautiful, and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose.

³ I will make you swear by the God of heaven and earth, that you shall not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I live. ⁴ But you shall go to my country, and to my relatives, and take a wife for my son Isaac." ⁵ The servant said to him, "What if the woman isn't willing to follow me to this land? Must I then bring your son back to the land from which you came?" ⁶ Abraham said to him, "Be careful that you do not take my son back there. ⁷ Now the God of heaven, who took me from my father's house, and from the land of my birth, who spoke to me, and who swore to me, saying, 'I will give this land to your offspring' -- he will send his angel before you, and you shall take a wife for my son from there.

⁴⁴ and she will tell me, "Drink, and I will also draw for your camels,"—let her be the woman who has been appointed for my master's son.'

³⁴ When Esau was forty years old, he married Judith, the daughter of Beeri the Hethite, and Basemath, the daughter of Elon the Hethite. ³⁵ They brought grief to Isaac and Rebekah.

⁴⁶ Rebekah said to Isaac, "I loathe my life because of the daughters of Heth. If Jacob takes a wife from the daughters of Heth, like these, from the daughters of the land, what good is my life?"

² Arise, go to Paddan Aram, to the house of Bethuel your mother's father. Take a wife from there from the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother. ³ May El Shaddai bless you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, that you may be a company of peoples, ⁴ and give you the blessing of Abraham, to you, and to your descendants with you, that you may inherit the land where you travel, which God gave to Abraham."

⁴ For he will turn away your son from following me, that he may serve other gods; so the anger of the LORD would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly.

⁴ Then were assembled to me everyone who trembled at the words of the God of Israel, because of their trespass of the captivity; and I sat confounded until the evening offering.

²⁴ and their children spoke half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews' language, but according to the language of each people.

³ (For the length of my life is still in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils);

²³ Guard your heart with all diligence, for out of it is the wellspring of life.

²⁵ Do not lust after her beauty in your heart, neither let her captivate you with her eyelids.

²⁵ Do not let your heart turn to her ways. Do not go astray in her paths,

⁷ and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

²¹ Yet I had planted you a noble vine, wholly a right seed. How then have you turned into the degenerate branches of a foreign vine to me?

¹⁰ Yet the number of the children of Israel will be as the sand of the sea, which can't be measured nor numbered; and it will come to pass that, in the place where it was said to them, "You are 'Not My People,'" they will be called "Children of the Living God."

¹⁴ Yet you say, 'Why?' Because the LORD has been witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt treacherously, though she is your companion, and the wife of your covenant.

²⁸ but I tell you that everyone who looks at a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart. ²⁹ And if your right eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and throw it away from you.[note: Hyperbole, or Semitic idiom, meaning to stop doing a sin] For it is more profitable for you that one of your members should perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.

¹⁹ For out of the heart come forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, sexual sins, thefts, false testimony, and blasphemies.

⁴ He answered, and said, "Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, ⁵ and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother, and be joined to his wife; and the two will become one flesh?' ⁶ So that they are no more two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no one separate."

⁶ But from the beginning of the creation, he made them male and female. ⁷ For this cause a man will leave his father and mother, and will join to his wife, ⁸ and the two will become one flesh, so that they are no longer two, but one flesh.

²² When he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit.

²⁵ You are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, 'And through your offspring all the families of the earth will be blessed.'

² But, because of sexual immoralities, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband.

¹⁴ For the unbelieving husband is sanctified in the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the brother. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy.

¹⁸ "And I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters," says the Lord of hosts.

⁴ And fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but nurture them in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

⁴ one who rules his own house well, having children in subjection with all reverence; ⁵ (but if someone does not know how to manage his own house, how will he take care of the church of God?)

¹¹ Their wives in the same way must be reverent, not slanderers, temperate, faithful in all things. ¹² Let deacons be husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well.

⁶ if anyone is blameless, the husband of one wife, having children who believe, who are not accused of loose or unruly behavior.

¹⁴ But each one is tempted, when he is drawn away by his own lust, and enticed. ¹⁵ Then the lust, when it has conceived, bears sin; and the sin, when it is full grown, brings forth death.

¹ When a man takes a wife, and marries her, then it shall be, if she find no favor in his eyes, because he has found some unseemly thing in her, that he shall write her a bill of divorce, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house. ² When she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man's wife. ³ If the latter husband hate her, and write her a bill of divorce, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house; or if the latter husband die, who took her to be his wife; ⁴ her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after that she is defiled; for that is abomination before the LORD: and you shall not cause the land to sin, which the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance.

¹³ He who conceals his sins doesn't prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy.

²⁰ For the bed is too short to stretch out on, and the blanket is too narrow to wrap oneself in.

¹ Thus says the LORD, "Where is the bill of your mother's divorce, with which I have put her away? or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Look, for your iniquities were you sold, and for your transgressions was your mother put away.

⁶ Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works: their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands.

² The faithful have vanished from the earth, and there is no one upright among men. They all lie in wait for blood; every man hunts his brother with a net. ³ Their hands are on that which is evil to do it diligently. The ruler and judge ask for a bribe; and the powerful man dictates the evil desire of his soul. Thus they conspire together.

³¹ "And it was said, 'Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce,' ³² but I tell you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the cause of sexual immorality, makes her an adulteress; and whoever marries her when she is divorced commits adultery.

³ And Pharisees came to him, testing him, and saying to him, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce a wife for any reason?" ⁴ He answered, and said, "Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, ⁵ and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother, and be joined to his wife; and the two will become one flesh?' ⁶ So that they are no more two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no one separate." ⁷ They asked him, "Why then did Moses command us to give her a certificate of divorce, and divorce her?" ⁸ He said to them, "Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it has not been so. ⁹ I tell you that whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery. And he who marries her when she is divorced commits adultery."

² Pharisees came to him testing him, and asked him, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" ³ He answered, "What did Moses command you?" ⁴ They said, "Moses allowed a certificate of divorce to be written, and to divorce her." ⁵ But Jesus said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart, he wrote you this commandment. ⁶ But from the beginning of the creation, he made them male and female. ⁷ For this cause a man will leave his father and mother, and will join to his wife, ⁸ and the two will become one flesh, so that they are no longer two, but one flesh. ⁹ What therefore God has joined together, let no one separate." ¹⁰ In the house, the disciples asked him again about the same matter. ¹¹ He said to them, "Whoever divorces his wife, and marries another, commits adultery against her. ¹² If she herself divorces her husband, and marries another, she commits adultery."

¹⁸ Everyone who divorces his wife, and marries another, commits adultery. He who marries one who is divorced from a husband commits adultery.

⁴ The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A faithful God and without iniquity, just and right is he.

³ "Do not keep speaking proudly. Do not let arrogance come out of your mouth, for the LORD is a God of knowledge. By him actions are weighed.

⁵ For Job has said, 'I am righteous, God has taken away my right: ⁶ Notwithstanding my right I am considered a liar. My wound is incurable, though I am without disobedience.' ⁷ What man is like Job, who drinks scorn like water, ⁸ Who goes in company with evildoers, and walks with wicked men? ⁹ For he has said, 'It profits a man nothing that he should delight himself with God.'

¹⁷ Shall even one who hates justice govern? Will you condemn him who is righteous and mighty?—

³⁶ I wish that Job were tried to the end, because of his answering like wicked men.

¹⁷ "But you are full of the judgment of the wicked. Judgment and justice take hold of you.

¹¹ He says in his heart, "God has forgotten. He hides his face. He will never see it." ¹² Arise, LORD. God, lift up your hand. Do not forget the helpless. ¹³ Why does the wicked person condemn God, and say in his heart, "You will not seek (an accounting)."

³ For I was envious of the arrogant, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. ⁴ For there are no struggles in their death, but their strength is firm. ⁵ They are free from burdens of men, neither are they plagued like other men. ⁶ Therefore pride is like a chain around their neck. Violence covers them like a garment. ⁷ Their sin proceeds forth from fatness. Their hearts overflow with imaginations. ⁸ They scoff and speak with malice. In arrogance, they threaten oppression. ⁹ They have set their mouth in the heavens. Their tongue walks through the earth. ¹⁰ Therefore my people turn to them, and they drink up waters of abundance. ¹¹ They say, "How does God know? Is there knowledge in the Most High?" ¹² Look, these are the wicked. Being always at ease, they increase in riches. ¹³ Surely in vain I have cleansed my heart, and washed my hands in innocence, ¹⁴ For all day long have I been plagued, and punished every morning. ¹⁵ If I had said, "I will speak thus;" look, I would have betrayed the generation of your children.

⁹ when your fathers tempted me, tested me, and saw my work. ¹⁰ For forty years I loathed that generation, and said, "It is a people who go astray in their heart, and they do not know my ways."

¹¹ Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.

¹⁴ My soul hates your New Moons and your appointed feasts. They are a burden to me. I am weary of bearing them.

¹⁸ Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of falsehood, and wickedness as with cart rope; ¹⁹ Who say, "Let him make speed, let him hasten his work, that we may see it; and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come, that we may know it." ²⁰ Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.

¹³ He said, "Listen now, house of David: Is it not enough for you to try the patience of men, that you will try the patience of my God also?

¹⁸ Therefore the LORD will wait, that he may be gracious to you; and therefore he will be exalted, that he may have mercy on you, for the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all those who wait for him.

²⁴ You have bought me no sweet cane with money, nor have you filled me with the fat of your sacrifices; but you have burdened me with your sins. You have wearied me with your iniquities.

⁶ 'You have rejected me,' says the LORD, 'you have gone backward:' therefore have I stretched out my hand against you, and destroyed you; I am weary with repenting.

¹² Then he said to me, "Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in his rooms of imagery? For they say, 'The LORD doesn't see us. The LORD has forsaken the land.'"

⁹ Then he said to me, "The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great, and the land is full of blood, and the city full of perversion: for they say, 'The LORD has forsaken the land, and the LORD doesn't see.'

⁴³ "'Because you have not remembered the days of your youth, but have raged against me in all these things; therefore, look, I also will bring your way on your head,' says the Lord GOD: 'and you shall not commit this lewdness with all your abominations.

¹³ Look, I will crush you in your place, as a cart crushes that is full of grain.

¹² It will happen at that time, that I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and I will punish the men who are settled on their dregs, who say in their heart, "The LORD will not do good, neither will he do evil."

¹³ "Your words have been stout against me," says the LORD. "Yet you say, 'What have we spoken against you?' ¹⁴ You have said, 'It is vain to serve God;' and 'What profit is it that we have followed his instructions, and that we have walked mournfully before the LORD of hosts? ¹⁵ Now we call the proud blessed; indeed, evildoers prosper. They even tempt God and escape.'

¹⁸ For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, 'He has a demon.' ¹⁹ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Look, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.' But wisdom is justified by her children."

³ knowing this first, that in the last days scoffers will come, mocking and walking after their own lusts, ⁴ and saying, "Where is the promise of his coming? For, from the day that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation."