I said, “I will keep watch over my ways So that I do not sin with my tongue; I will keep watch over my mouth as with a muzzle While the wicked are in my presence.”
“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male slave, or his female slave, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
They have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them. They have made for themselves a cast metal calf, and have worshiped it and have sacrificed to it and said, ‘This is your god, Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!’ ”
One who walks righteously and speaks with integrity, One who rejects unjust gain And shakes his hands so that they hold no bribe; One who stops his ears from hearing about bloodshed And shuts his eyes from looking at evil;
“But your eyes and your heart Are intent only upon your own dishonest gain, And on shedding innocent blood, And on practicing oppression and extortion.”
But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles, to which you want to be enslaved all over again?
Nothing at all from what is designated for destruction is to cling to your hand, in order that the Lord may turn from His burning anger and show mercy to you, and have compassion on you and make you increase, just as He has sworn to your fathers,
Be careful that there is no mean-spirited thought in your heart, such as, ‘The seventh year, the year of release of debts, is near,’ and your eye is malicious toward your poor brother, and you give him nothing; then he may cry out to the Lord against you, and it will be a sin in you.
Be very determined, then, to keep and do everything that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, so that you will not turn aside from it to the right or to the left,
For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment handed on to them.
They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be evident that they all are not of us.
“I regret that I have made Saul king, because he has turned back from following Me and has not carried out My commands.” And Samuel was furious and cried out to the Lord all night.