But they will say, “It’s hopeless. We will continue to follow our plans, and each of us will continue to act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.” ’
Only acknowledge your guilt – you have rebelled against the Lord your God. You have scattered your favours to strangers under every green tree and have not obeyed me. This is the Lord’s declaration.
This is what the Lord says concerning these people: Truly they love to wander; they never rest their feet. So the Lord does not accept them. Now he will remember their iniquity and punish their sins.
And when you ask yourself, ‘Why have these things happened to me? ’ it is because of your great guilt that your skirts have been stripped off, your body exposed.
For you have abandoned your people, the house of Jacob, because they are full of divination from the East and of fortune-tellers like the Philistines. They are in league with foreigners.
you will serve your enemies that the Lord will send against you, in famine, thirst, nakedness, and a lack of everything. He will place an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you.
“Father Abraham! ” he called out, “Have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this flame! ”
Otherwise, I will strip her naked and expose her as she was on the day of her birth. I will make her like a desert and like a parched land, and I will let her die of thirst.
Instead, we will do everything we promised: we will burn incense to the queen of heaven and offer drink offerings to her just as we, our ancestors, our kings, and our officials did in Judah’s cities and in Jerusalem’s streets. Then we had enough food, we were well off, and we saw no disaster,
Evil generation, pay attention to the word of the Lord! Have I been a wilderness to Israel or a land of dense darkness? Why do my people claim, ‘We will go where we want; we will no longer come to you’?
What will you say when he appoints close friends as leaders over you, ones you yourself trained? Won’t labour pains seize you, as they do a woman in labour?
She weeps bitterly during the night, with tears on her cheeks. There is no one to offer her comfort, not one from all her lovers. , All her friends have betrayed her; they have become her enemies.
Yes, their mother is promiscuous; she conceived them and acted shamefully. For she thought, ‘I will follow my lovers, the men who give me my food and water, my wool and flax, my oil and drink.’
He sacrificed to the gods of Damascus which had defeated him; he said, ‘Since the gods of the kings of Aram are helping them, I will sacrifice to them so that they will help me.’ But they were the downfall of him and of all Israel.