Lord, you are the God of Israel. You are holy. You always do what is right. Today you have left many of your people alive. Here we are with all our guilt. You see the guilt of our sin. Because we have sinned, not one of us can stand in front of you.”
I tried to purify you for my own honor. I did it for the honor of my name. How can I let myself be dishonored? I will not give up my glory to any other god.
That’s because we’ve done so many things he considers wrong. Our sins prove that we are guilty. The wrong things we’ve done are always troubling us. We admit that we have sinned.
How terrible it will be for me! I’ve been wounded! And my wound can’t be healed! In spite of that, I said to myself, “I’m sick. But I’ll have to put up with it.”
You will be punished because you have sinned. You will be corrected for turning away from me. I am the Lord your God. If you desert me, bad things will happen to you. If you do not respect me, you will suffer bitterly. I want you to understand that,” announces the Lord who rules over all.
Let us lie down in our shame. Let our dishonor cover us. You are the Lord our God. But we have sinned against you. We and our people of long ago have sinned. We haven’t obeyed you from our earliest years until now.”
During the time Josiah was king, the Lord spoke to me. He said, “Have you seen what the people of Israel have done? They have not been faithful to me. They have committed adultery with other gods. They worshiped them on every high hill and under every green tree.
So a lion from the forest will attack them. A wolf from the desert will destroy them. A leopard will hide and wait near their towns. It will tear to pieces anyone who dares to go out. Again and again they have refused to obey the Lord. They have turned away from him many times.
Why are we sitting here? Let’s gather together! Let’s run to the cities that have high walls around them! Let’s die there! The Lord our God has sentenced us to death. He has given us poisoned water to drink. That’s because we’ve sinned against him.
But I wanted my name to be honored. I kept it from being treated as if it were not holy. I did not want that to happen in front of the nations. They had seen me bring Israel out of Egypt.
But I kept myself from punishing them at that time. I wanted my name to be honored. So I kept it from being treated as if it were not holy. I did not want that to happen in front of the nations. They had seen me bring Israel out of Egypt.
I wanted my name to be honored. So I brought my people out of Egypt. I did it to keep my name from being treated as if it were not holy. I didn’t want this to happen in front of the nations around my people. I had made myself known to Israel in the sight of those nations.
We’ve sinned against the Lord. So he is angry with us. His anger will continue until he takes up our case. Then he’ll do what is right for us. He’ll bring us out into the light. Then we’ll see him save us.
But I was afraid their enemies would make fun of that. I was afraid their attackers would not understand. I was sure they would say, ‘We’re the ones who’ve beaten them! The Lord isn’t the one who did it.’ ”
The Canaanites will hear about it. So will everyone else in the country. They will surround us. They’ll erase any mention of our name from the face of the earth. Then what will you do when people don’t honor your great name anymore?”