So Adonai says, “Since these people draw near with their mouths and honor Me with their lips, yet their hearts are far from Me, and their fear of Me is a mitzvah taught by men.
Hear this, house of Jacob, who are called by the Name of Israel, who came from the wellspring of Judah, who swear by the Name of Adonai and confess the God of Israel— but not in truth or righteousness.
Yet they seek Me day to day and delight to know My ways, as if they were a nation that did right, and had not forsaken their God’s decree. They ask Me for righteous judgments; they delight in the nearness of God.”
transgressing and denying Adonai, turning back from following our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering lying words from the heart.
So they come to you, as people come, and sit before you as My people and hear your words—but they do not do them—for with their mouth they express doting love, but their heart goes after their own dishonest gain.
knowing that the Torah is not given for a tzaddik but for the lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinful, for the unholy and worldly, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers,
For we also once were foolish, disobedient, deluded, enslaved to various desires and pleasures, spending our lives in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another.
For certain people have secretly slipped in—those who from long ago have been marked out for this judgment. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into indecency and deny our only Master and Lord, Yeshua the Messiah.
But for the cowardly and faithless and detestable and murderers and sexually immoral and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars—their lot is in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”
Samuel said: “Does Adonai delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of Adonai? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, to pay heed than the fat of rams.
Then Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned! For I have transgressed against the word of Adonai and your words—because I feared the people and listened to their voice.