Then Reuben said to them, “I told you not to do anything bad to that boy. But you refused to listen to me. So now we are being punished for his death.”
I will demand your blood for your lives. That is, I will demand the life of any animal that kills a person. And I will demand the life of any person who takes another person’s life.
Joash the king didn’t remember Jehoiada’s kindness to him. Jehoiada was Zechariah’s father. But Joash killed Zechariah, Jehoiada’s son. Before Zechariah died, he said, “May the Lord see what you are doing and punish you!”
You will eat that meat for a whole month. You will eat the meat until you are sick of it. This will happen to you because you complained against the Lord. The Lord lives among you and knows what you need. But you cried and complained to him! You said, ‘Why did we ever leave Egypt?’”
“When a person listens to you, that person is really listening to me. But when a person refuses to accept you, that person is really refusing to accept me. And when a person refuses to accept me, he is refusing to accept the One (God) that sent me.”
Be sure that there is no man, woman, family or family group here today that turns away from the Lord our God. No person should go and serve the gods of the other nations. People who do that are like a plant that grows bitter and poisonous fruit.