lest perhaps, being filled, I might be enticed into denial, and say: 'Who is the Lord?' Or, being compelled by destitution, I might steal, and then perjure myself in the name of my God.
The acknowledgement of their countenance is their response. For they have proclaimed their own sin, like Sodom; and they have not concealed it. Woe to their souls! For evils are being repaid to them.
Consider the word of the Lord. Have I become like a wilderness to Israel, or like a land late to bear fruit? Then why have my people said, 'We are withdrawing; we will no longer approach you'?
And this shall be in that time: I will scrutinize Jerusalem with lamps, and I will visit upon the men who have become stuck in the dregs, who say in their hearts, "The Lord will not do good, and he will not do evil."
Seek the Lord, all you meek of the earth; you who have been working are his judgment. Seek the just, seek the meek. So then, in some way, you might be hidden in the day of the fury of the Lord.
For although they had known God, they did not glorify God, nor give thanks. Instead, they became weakened in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was obscured.
And since they did not prove to have God by knowledge, God handed them over to a morally depraved way of thinking, so that they might do those things which are not fitting:
and that you were, in that time, without Christ, being foreign to the way of life of Israel, being visitors to the testament, having no hope of the promise, and being without God in this world.