All of us are dirty with sin. All the right things we have done are like filthy pieces of cloth. All of us are like dead leaves, and our sins, like the wind, have carried us away.
The Lord says, “Family of Jacob, listen to me. You are called Israel, and you come from the family of Judah. You swear by the Lord’s name and praise the God of Israel, but you are not honest or sincere.
This is what the Lord says: “People of Israel, you say I divorced your mother. Then where is the paper that proves it? Or do you think I sold you to pay a debt? Because of the evil things you did, I sold you. Because of the times she turned against me, your mother was sent away.
I came home and found no one there; I called, but no one answered. Do you think I am not able to save you? Do I not have the power to save you? Look, I need only to shout and the sea becomes dry. I change rivers into a desert, and their fish rot because there is no water; they die of thirst.
All this disaster came to us just as it is written in the Teachings of Moses. But we have not pleaded with the Lord our God. We have not stopped sinning. We have not paid attention to your truth.
“If the skin disease spreads all over a person’s body, covering his skin from his head to his feet, as far as the priest can see, the priest must look at the person’s whole body.
Yes, I know that nothing good lives in me—I mean nothing good lives in the part of me that is earthly and sinful. I want to do the things that are good, but I do not do them.
and to belong to him. Now I am right with God, not because I followed the law, but because I believed in Christ. God uses my faith to make me right with him.
In the past we also were foolish. We did not obey, we were wrong, and we were slaves to many things our bodies wanted and enjoyed. We spent our lives doing evil and being jealous. People hated us, and we hated each other.