And you also have done worse than your fathers: for, behold, every one of you walketh after the perverseness of his evil heart, so as not to hearken to me.
This wicked people, that will not hear my words and that walk in the perverseness of their heart and have gone after strange gods to serve them and to adore them: and they shall be as this girdle which is fit for no use.
This is a very great evil among all things that are done under the sun, that the same things happen to all men: whereby also the hearts of the children of men are filled with evil, and with contempt while they live, and afterwards they shall be brought down to hell.
But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear: but walked in their own will and in the perversity of their wicked heart, and went backward and not forward,
Because it is like the sin of witchcraft, to rebel: and like the crime of idolatry, to refuse to obey. Forasmuch therefore as thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, the Lord hath also rejected thee from being king.
But after the judge was dead, they returned, and did much worse things than their fathers had done, following strange gods, serving them and adoring them. They left not their own inventions, and the stubborn way, by which they were accustomed to walk.
But though a sinner do evil a hundred times, and by patience be borne withal, I know from thence that it shall be well with them that fear God, who dread his face.
And when he shall hear the words of this oath, he should bless himself in his heart, saying: I shall have peace, and will walk on in the naughtiness of my heart; and the drunken may consume the thirsty.
And the Lord smelled a sweet savour, and said: I will no more curse the earth for the sake of man: for the imagination and thought of man's heart are prone to evil from his youth: therefore I will no more destroy every living soul as I have done.
Wherefore say to the house of Israel: Thus saith the Lord God: Verily, you are defiled in the way of your fathers and you commit fornication with their abominations.
Thus saith the Lord: For three crimes of Juda, and for four I will not convert him: because he hath cast away the law of the Lord, and hath not kept his commandments: for their idols have caused them to err, after which their fathers have walked.
For from the days of your fathers you have departed from my ordinances, and have not kept them: Return to me, and I will return to you, saith the Lord of hosts. And you have said: Wherein shall we return?
Is this man Jechonias an earthen and a broken vessel? Is he a vessel wherein there is no pleasure? Why are they cast out, he and his seed, and are cast into a land which they know not?