I will bring you out from the nations, and will gather you from the lands where you are scattered, with a powerful hand and an outstretched arm and with an outpouring of rage!

“‘But the Levites who went far from me, straying off from me after their idols when Israel went astray, will be responsible for ¹  their sin.

This will be for the priests who are set apart from the descendants of Zadok who kept my charge and did not go astray when the people of Israel strayed off, like the Levites did. ¹ 

Woe to them! For they have fled from me! Destruction to them! For they have rebelled against me! I want to deliver ¹  them, but they have lied to me.

Your shepherds ¹  are sleeping, O king of Assyria! Your officers ²  are slumbering! ³  Your people are scattered like sheep ⁴  on the mountains and there is no one to regather them!

When ¹  he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were bewildered and helpless, ²  like sheep without a shepherd.

“When ¹  an unclean spirit ²  goes out of a person, ³  it passes through waterless places ⁴  looking for rest but ⁵  does not find it.

For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,

I was a stranger and you did not receive me as a guest, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’

Then they too will answer, ¹  ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not give you whatever you needed?’

Stay awake and pray that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Jesus said to them, “Aren’t you deceived ¹  for this reason, because you don’t know the scriptures or the power of God?

All have turned away, together they have become worthless; there is no one who shows kindness, not even one.” ¹ 

To the present hour we are hungry and thirsty, poorly clothed, brutally treated, and without a roof over our heads.

So then you are no longer foreigners and noncitizens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of God’s household,

They have strayed from the truth ¹  by saying that the resurrection has already occurred, and they are undermining some people’s faith.

“Therefore, I became provoked at that generation and said, ‘Their hearts are always wandering ¹  and they have not known my ways.’

He is able to deal compassionately with those who are ignorant and erring, since he also is subject to weakness,

By faith he lived as a foreigner ¹  in the promised land as though it were a foreign country, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, who were fellow heirs ²  of the same promise.

For you were going astray like sheep ¹  but now you have turned back to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.