How can this be the return you would offer to the Lord, O foolish and senseless people? Is he himself not your Father, who has possessed you, and made you, and created you?
Let fear and dread fall upon them, by the magnitude of your arm. Let them become immobilized like stone, until your people cross through, O Lord, until this, your people whom you possess, cross through.
Its harvest will be crushed by dryness. Women will arrive and teach it, for it is not a wise people. Because of this, he who made it will not take pity on it, and he who formed it will not spare it.
And now thus says the Lord who created you, O Jacob, and who formed you, O Israel: Do not be afraid. For I have redeemed you, and I have called you by your name. You are mine.
For you are our Father, and Abraham has not known us, and Israel has been ignorant of us. You are our Father, O Lord our Redeemer. Your name is beyond all ages.
The son honors the father, and the servant his master. If, therefore, I am Father, where is my honor? And if I am Master, where is my fear? says the Lord of hosts to you, O priests, who despise my name. And you have said, "In what way, have we despised your name?"
Take care of yourselves and of the entire flock, over which the Holy Spirit has stationed you as Bishops to rule the Church of God, which he has purchased by his own blood.
And you have not received, again, a spirit of servitude in fear, but you have received the Spirit of the adoption of sons, in whom we cry out: "Abba, Father!"
And in the wilderness (as you yourselves saw), the Lord your God carried you, like a man who is accustomed to carrying his little son, along all the way that you walked, until you arrived at this place.'
But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be among you lying teachers, who will introduce divisions of perdition, and they will deny him who bought them, the Lord, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.
See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we would be called, and would become, the sons of God. Because of this, the world does not know us, for it did not know him.