The person who hears me but doesn't do what I say is like a man who builds a house without foundations. When the floodwater breaks against the house it collapses immediately—it's completely destroyed.”
So my people come and visit you like they usually do. They sit and listen to the message you share, but they don't do anything about it. Even though they talk about love, all they're thinking about is how to cheat others.
I will not punish your daughters when they practice prostitution, nor your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery, because you men visit whores and sacrifice with temple prostitutes. A people who lack understanding end up in disaster.
That person is like a man building a house. He digs down deep and lays the foundations on solid rock. When the river bursts its banks and the floodwater breaks against the house it's not damaged because it's built so well.
I had them punished in all the synagogues, trying to make them recant. I was so furiously opposed to them that I went to cities outside our country to persecute them.
This is why, when I couldn't stand it anymore, I sent to find out whether you were still trusting in God. I was concerned that the devil had successfully tempted you and that all our work had been for nothing!
If people manage to escape from the evil influence of the world by knowing the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and then get tangled up in sin again and are defeated, they are worse off than they were in the first place.
They left us, but they didn't belong with us, for if they did, they would have remained with us. When they left they showed that none of them belonged with us.