Because your heart was tender, and you have humbled yourself before the LORD, when you heard what I spoke against this place, and against the inhabitants thereof, that they should become a desolation and a curse, and have torn your clothes, and wept before me; I also have heard you, says the LORD.
But if you will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret for your pride; and my eye shall weep bitterly, and run down with tears, because the LORD’S flock is carried away captive.
And the LORD said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that are done in its midst.
Slay utterly old and young, both maidens, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the elders who were before the house.
And, behold, one of the children of Israel came and brought unto his brethren a Midianite woman in the sight of Moses, and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel, who were weeping before the door of the tabernacle of meeting.
For I fear, lest, when I come, I shall not find you such as I wish, and that I shall be found unto you such as you desire not: lest there be debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, conceit, tumults:
And lest, when I come again, my God will humble me among you, and that I shall mourn over many who have sinned already, and have not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and licentiousness which they have committed.