“But the tax collector, standing some distance away, wouldn’t even lift his eyes toward heaven, but beat his chest, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’
“Then I Myself said: ‘How gladly would I make you sons and give you a pleasant land— the most beautiful inheritance of the nations!’ I thought you would call Me—Avi!— and would not turn from following Me.
Erect road markers, set up signposts! Set your heart toward the highway, the way by which you traveled! Return, O virgin Israel, return to your cities.
For You are our Father— even if Abraham would not know us or Israel not recognize us. You, Adonai, are our Father, our Redeemer— from everlasting is Your Name.
His prayer also, and how God was moved by his entreaty, all his sin and his unfaithfulness, and the sites on which he built high places and erected the Asherah poles and the carved images before he humbled himself, behold, they are written in the records of Hozai.