His prayer also, and how God listened to his request, and all his sin and his trespass, and the places in which he built high places and set up the Asherah poles and the engraved images before he humbled himself: behold, they are written in the history of Hozai.
For you are our Father, though Abraham doesn’t know us, and Israel does not acknowledge us. You, LORD, are our Father. Our Redeemer from everlasting is your name.
“But I said, ‘How I desire to put you amongst the children, and give you a pleasant land, a goodly heritage of the armies of the nations!’ and I said, ‘You shall call me “My Father”, and shall not turn away from following me.’
Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a darling child? For as often as I speak against him, I still earnestly remember him. Therefore my heart yearns for him. I will surely have mercy on him,” says the LORD.
If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
He said to them, “When you pray, say, ‘Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. May your Kingdom come. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.