Come near to God and he will come near to you. You are sinners, so clean sin out of your lives. You are trying to follow God and the world at the same time. Make your thinking pure.
Evil people should stop living evil lives. They should stop thinking bad thoughts. They should come to the Lord again, and he will comfort them. They should come to our God because he will freely forgive them.
People knew God, but they did not honor him as God, and they did not thank him. Their ideas were all useless. There was not one good thought left in their foolish minds.
The Lord said to him, “The washing you Pharisees do is like cleaning only the outside of a cup or a dish. But what is inside you? You want only to cheat and hurt people.
I saw the terrible things you did. I saw you laughing and having sex with your lovers. I know about your plans to be like a prostitute. I have seen you on the hills and in the fields. It will be very bad for you, Jerusalem. How long will you continue doing your dirty sins?”
“If you want good fruit, you must make the tree good. If your tree is not good, it will have bad fruit. A tree is known by the kind of fruit it produces.
Throw away all the terrible idols with which you committed your crimes! Change your heart and spirit. People of Israel, why should you do things that will cost you your life?
Hear this, people of the earth: I am going to bring disaster to the people of Judah because of all the evil they planned, and because they ignored my messages. They refused to obey my law.
“The sins of Judah are written where they cannot be erased— cut into stone with an iron pen, cut deep with a hard tip into the stone that is the hearts of the people. Their sins are carved into the horns of their altars.
Don’t make secret plans to hurt your neighbors. Don’t make false promises. You must not enjoy doing these things, because I hate them!” This is what the Lord said.
“So, Jeremiah, say to the people of Judah and those who live in Jerusalem, ‘This is what the Lord says: I am the potter preparing troubles for you and making plans against you. So stop doing the evil things you are doing. Each person must change and start doing good.’