You must not desire to have anyone else's house. You must not desire to have their wife, or their male slave or female slave, or their ox or donkey, or anything else that belongs to them.”
They have been so quick to abandon the way I ordered them to follow. They have made a metal bull calf idol for themselves, bowing before it in worship and offering sacrifices to it. They're saying, ‘These are the gods that brought you out of the land of Egypt.’”
Those who live right and speak the truth, those who refuse to profit from extortion and refuse to take bribes, who don't listen to plots to kill people, who close their eyes rather than look at evil.
But all you're looking for, all you think about, is getting whatever you want, however dishonestly. You kill the innocent, you violently mistreat and exploit your people.
But now you've come to know God—or better, to be known by God. So how can you go back to those useless and worthless rules? Do you want to be slaves to those rules all over again?
Don't take for yourselves anything that has been set apart for destruction so that the Lord won't be angry any more. He will be merciful to you, showing you compassion, and giving you many descendants as he promised to your forefathers,
Make sure you don't think evil thoughts like, “The seventh year is coming up when debts will be canceled,” so that you look down on the poor with a sneer and refuse to give them anything. They will complain to the Lord about you, and you will be found guilty of sin.
It would have been better not to have known the right way of truth, than to have known it and then turn away from the sacred instructions they'd been given.
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.
“I'm sorry I made Saul king, for he has given up following me and hasn't done as I ordered.” Samuel was upset, and he cried out to the Lord all through the night.