Also, his prayer and its heeding, and all his sins and contempt, and the sites on which he built high places and made sacred groves and statues, before he repented, have been written in the words of Hozai.
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.
But I said: How shall I place you among the sons, and distribute to you a desirable land, the preeminent inheritance of the host of the Gentiles? And I said: You will call me Father, and you will not cease to walk after me.
Certainly, Ephraim is an honorable son to me; surely, he is a tender child. For I will still remember him, as in the time when I first spoke about him. Because my heart is stirred up over him, surely I will take pity on him, says the Lord.
Therefore, if you, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your sons, how much more will your Father, who is in heaven, give good things to those who ask him?
And the tax collector, standing at a distance, was not willing to even lift up his eyes to heaven. But he struck his chest, saying: 'O God, be merciful to me, a sinner.'