and he cried out to the man of God who had come from Judah: “Thus says the Lord: Because you rebelled against the charge of the Lord and did not keep the command which the Lord, your God, gave you,
“After all that has come upon us for our evil deeds and our great guilt—though you, our God, have made less of our sinfulness than it deserved and have allowed us to survive as we do—
But they were contemptuous and rebelled against you: they cast your law behind their backs. They murdered your prophets who bore witness against them to bring them back to you: they were guilty of great insults.
You would be in the right, O Lord, if I should dispute with you; even so, I must lay out the case against you. Why does the way of the wicked prosper, why do all the treacherous live in contentment?
They went in and took possession of it, but they did not listen to your voice. They did not live by your law; they did not do anything you commanded them to do. Then you made all this evil fall upon them.
For thus says the Lord: Look, even those not sentenced to drink the cup must drink it! Shall you then go unpunished? You shall not! You shall drink every bit of it!
Come, all who pass by the way, pay attention and see: Is there any pain like my pain, which has been ruthlessly inflicted upon me, With which the Lord has tormented me on the day of his blazing wrath?
Justice, O Lord, is on your side; we are shamefaced even to this day: the men of Judah, the residents of Jerusalem, and all Israel, near and far, in all the lands to which you have scattered them because of their treachery toward you.
But my words and my statutes, with which I charged my servants the prophets, did these not overtake your ancestors? Then they repented and admitted: “Just as the Lord of hosts intended to treat us according to our ways and deeds, so the Lord has done.” First Vision: Horses Patrolling the Earth.
Now we know that what the law says is addressed to those under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world stand accountable to God,
“Seventy kings,” said Adonibezek, “used to pick up scraps under my table with their thumbs and big toes cut off. As I have done, so has God repaid me.” He was brought to Jerusalem, and he died there.
For a sin of divination is rebellion, and arrogance, the crime of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, the Lord in turn has rejected you as king.” Rejection of Saul.