You have insulted me and spoken against me; you have raised your voice against me. You have a proud look on your face, which is against me, the Holy One of Israel.
The Lord says: “These people worship me with their mouths, and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is based on nothing but human rules.
But you people want a false prophet who will tell you nothing but lies. You want one who promises to prophesy good things for you if you give him wine and beer. He’s just the prophet for you.
But Elymas, the magician, was against them. (Elymas is the name for Bar-Jesus in the Greek language.) He tried to stop the governor from believing in Jesus.
People did not think it was important to have a true knowledge of God. So God left them and allowed them to have their own worthless thinking and to do things they should not do.
and say evil things about each other. They hate God. They are rude and conceited and brag about themselves. They invent ways of doing evil. They do not obey their parents.
When people’s thinking is controlled by the sinful self, they are against God, because they refuse to obey God’s law and really are not even able to obey God’s law.