The Lord used every prophet and seer to warn Israel and Judah. He said, “Stop your evil ways and obey my commands and laws. Follow all the teachings that I commanded your ancestors, the teachings that I gave you through my servants the prophets.”
You do not want sacrifices and offerings. But you have made a hole in my ear to show that my body and life are yours. You do not ask for burnt offerings and sacrifices to take away sins.
This is what the Lord, who saves you, the Holy One of Israel, says: “I am the Lord your God, who teaches you to do what is good, who leads you in the way you should go.
But you have not heard me; you have not understood. Even long ago you did not listen to me. I knew you would surely turn against me; you have fought against me since you were born.
But every person and animal should be covered with rough cloth, and people should cry loudly to God. Everyone must turn away from evil living and stop doing harm all the time.
I said, ‘Surely now Jerusalem will respect me and will accept my teaching.’ Then the place where they lived would not be destroyed, and I would not have to punish them. But they were still eager to do evil in everything they did.
One of the listeners was a woman named Lydia from the city of Thyatira whose job was selling purple cloth. She worshiped God, and he opened her mind to pay attention to what Paul was saying.
Come near to God, and God will come near to you. You sinners, clean sin out of your lives. You who are trying to follow God and the world at the same time, make your thinking pure.