and that they should not be like their ancestors, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation whose heart was not steadfast, whose spirit was not faithful to God.
Woe, sinful nation, people laden with iniquity, offspring who do evil, children who act corruptly, who have forsaken the Lord, who have despised the Holy One of Israel, [[who are utterly estranged!]]
Against a godless nation I send him, and against the people of my wrath I command him, to take spoil and seize plunder, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.
Because you have said, “We have made a covenant with death, and with Sheol we have an agreement; when the overwhelming scourge passes through it will not come to us, for we have made lies our refuge, and in falsehood we have taken shelter”;
Therefore, as the tongue of fire devours the stubble and as dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root will become rotten, and their blossom go up like dust, for they have rejected the instruction of the Lord of hosts and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.
The command has been carried out that Jonadab son of Rechab gave to his descendants to drink no wine, and they drink none to this day, for they have obeyed their ancestor’s command. But I myself have spoken to you persistently, and you have not obeyed me.
And now, because you have done all these things, says the Lord, and when I spoke to you persistently, you did not listen, and when I called you, you did not answer,
You shall say to them: This is the nation that did not obey the voice of the Lord their God and did not accept discipline; truth has perished; it is cut off from their lips.
They bend their tongues like bows; they have grown strong in the land for falsehood and not for truth, for they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not know me, says the Lord.
He said, ‘I will hide my face from them; I will see what their end will be, for they are a perverse generation, children in whom there is no faithfulness.
But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted, the murderers, the sexually immoral, the sorcerers, the idolaters, and all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”