Ah! Sinful nation, people laden with wickedness, evil offspring, corrupt children! They have forsaken the Lord, spurned the Holy One of Israel, apostatized,
Come and assemble, gather together, you fugitives from among the nations! They are without knowledge who bear wooden idols and pray to gods that cannot save.
Come near to me and hear this! From the beginning I did not speak in secret; At the time it happens, I am there: “Now the Lord God has sent me, and his spirit.”
They seek me day after day, and desire to know my ways, Like a nation that has done what is just and not abandoned the judgment of their God; They ask of me just judgments, they desire to draw near to God.
The Lord said to me in the days of King Josiah: Do you see what rebellious Israel has done? She has gone up every high mountain, and under every green tree she has played the prostitute.
When the Lord began to speak with Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea: Go, get for yourself a woman of prostitution and children of prostitution, for the land prostitutes itself, turning away from the Lord.
Accuse your mother, accuse! for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband. Let her remove her prostitution from her face. her adultery from between her breasts,
I will draw near to you for judgment, and I will be swift to bear witness Against sorcerers, adulterers, and perjurers, those who deprive a laborer of wages, Oppress a widow or an orphan, or turn aside a resident alien, without fearing me, says the Lord of hosts.
An evil and unfaithful generation seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it except the sign of Jonah.” Then he left them and went away. The Leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?
Adulterers! Do you not know that to be a lover of the world means enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wants to be a lover of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
In this way, the children of God and the children of the devil are made plain; no one who fails to act in righteousness belongs to God, nor anyone who does not love his brother.