A wicked and wayward generation always asks for signs, but the only sign I provide for you will be the sign of Jonah the prophet.” Then he turned away and left them.
Here is how God’s children can be clearly distinguished from the children of the Evil One. Anyone who does not demonstrate righteousness and show love to fellow believers is not living with God as his source.
You have become spiritual adulterers who are having an affair, an unholy relationship with the world. Don’t you know that flirting with the world’s values places you at odds with God? Whoever chooses to be the world’s friend makes himself God’s enemy!
John kept preaching to the many crowds who came out to be baptized, “You are nothing but the offspring of venomous snakes, full of deception! Who warned you to repent before the coming wrath of God?
You are nothing but snakes in the grass, the offspring of poisonous vipers! How will you escape the judgment of hell if you refuse to turn in repentance?
But you who are known as the Pharisees are rotten to the core like venomous snakes. How can your words be good if you are rotten within? For what has been stored up in your hearts will be heard in the overflow of your words!
But when he saw many coming from among the wealthy elite of Jewish society and many of the religious leaders known as Pharisees coming to witness the baptism, he began to denounce them, saying, “You offspring of vipers! Who warned you to slither away like snakes from the fire of God’s judgment?
“Come together! Assemble yourselves! Draw near, you refugees from among the nations. Those who parade their powerless wooden idols have no revelation-knowledge. They keep on praying to gods who cannot save them.
Look how the once faithful city has become as unfaithful as a prostitute! She who was once the “Center of Justice,” where righteousness made its home, is now the dwelling place of murderers!
Oh, how this nation keeps sinning! See them dragging the heavy burden of their guilt! They are corrupt children, descendants of evildoers. They have turned their backs on the Lord God and despised the Holy One of Israel! They have cut themselves off from the help of God!
“Draw near to me and listen: From the beginning, I have not spoken in secret. From the beginning of time, I was there.” And now Lord Yahweh has sent me, empowered by his Spirit!
Yes, daily they seem to seek me, pretending that they delight to know my ways, as though they were a nation that does what is right and had not rejected the law of their God. They ask me to show them the right way, acting as though they are eager to be close to me.
During Josiah’s reign as king of Judah, Yahweh asked me, “Did you see what unfaithful Israel has done? Like an adulterous wife, she has turned away from me. In every high place and under every green tree, she has prostituted herself to worship other gods.