Let the priests, the Lord’s ministers, weep between the portico and the altar. Let them say, “Have pity on your people, Lord, and do not make your inheritance a disgrace, an object of scorn among the nations. Why should it be said among the peoples, ‘Where is their God? ’ ”
Should good be repaid with evil? Yet they have dug a pit for me. Remember how I stood before you to speak good on their behalf, to turn your anger from them.
Then the Lord said to me, “Even if Moses and Samuel should stand before me, my compassions would not reach out to these people. Send them from my presence, and let them go.
Then he said, “My Lord, if I have indeed found favor with you, my Lord, please go with us (even though this is a stiff-necked people), forgive our iniquity and our sin, and accept us as your own possession.”
He told the vineyard worker, ‘Listen, for three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it even waste the soil? ’