Here are the leaders of the provinces that lived in Jerusalem. (Some of the people of Israel, priests, Levites, temple servants, and descendants of Solomon’s servants lived in the towns of Judah. Each person lived on his own land in the different towns.
Then, if you do wrong and go (live) the wrong way (to the right or to the left), you will hear a voice behind you saying, “This is the right way. You should go this way!”
“People in all the towns of Judah will live together in peace. Farmers and those that move around with their flocks will live peacefully together in Judah.
Those people will come back crying.\par But I will lead them and comfort them.\par I will lead those people by streams of water.\par I will lead them on an easy road,\par so that they will not stumble.\par I will lead them in that way\par because I am Israel’s father.\par And Ephraim {\cf2\super [250]} is my firstborn son.\par
The Lord says these things:\par “Stand at the crossroads and look.\par Ask where the old road is.\par Ask where the good road is,\par and walk on that road.\par If you do, you will find rest for yourselves.\par But you people have said,\par ‘We will not walk on the good road!’\par
If the cloud stayed over the Holy Tent for two days, or a month, or a year, the people continued to obey the Lord. They stayed at that place and did not leave until the cloud moved. Then when the cloud rose from its place and moved, the people also moved.
But those men were waiting for a better country—a heavenly country. So God is not ashamed to be called their God. And God has prepared a city for those men.
But you have not come to that kind of place. The new place you have come to is Mount Zion. {\cf2\super [165]} You have come to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. {\cf2\super [166]} You have come to an excited gathering of thousands of angels.
These false teachers left the right way and went the wrong way. They followed the same way that Balaam went. Balaam was the son of Beor. He loved being paid for doing wrong.
Yes, it would be better for those people to have never known the right way. That would be better than to know the right way and then to turn away from the holy teaching that was given to them.