The sovereign master ¹  will give you distress to eat and suffering to drink; ²  but your teachers will no longer be hidden; your eyes will see them. ³ 

So I, the Lord, say this: ¹  ‘I will soon bring disaster on them which they will not be able to escape! When they cry out to me for help, I will not listen to them.

As a matter of fact, ¹  even your own brothers and the members of your own family have betrayed you too. Even they have plotted to do away with you. ²  So do not trust them even when they say kind things ³  to you.

“For Israel and Judah will not be forsaken ¹  by their God, the Lord who rules over all. ²  For the land of Babylonia is ³  full of guilt against the Holy One of Israel. ⁴ 

Even when their enemies drive them into captivity, ¹  from there ²  I will command the sword to kill them. I will not let them out of my sight; they will experience disaster, not prosperity.” ³ 

For just as you ¹  have drunk ²  on my holy mountain, so all the nations will drink continually. ³  They will drink, and they will gulp down; they will be as though they had never been.

Yet you ask, “Why?” The Lord is testifying against you on behalf of the wife you married when you were young, ¹  to whom you have become unfaithful even though she is your companion and wife by law. ² 

When ¹  the head steward tasted the water that had been turned to wine, not knowing where it came from ²  (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), he ³  called the bridegroom

But if I do them, even if you do not believe me, believe the deeds, ¹  so that you may come to know ²  and understand that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”

For though you may have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers, because I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

To the Jews I became like a Jew to gain the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) ¹  to gain those under the law.

For just as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body – though many – are one body, so too is Christ.

Now we pray to God that you may not do anything wrong, not so that we may appear to have passed the test, ¹  but so that you may do what is right ²  even if we may appear to have failed the test. ³ 

When such a person ¹  hears the words of this oath he secretly ²  blesses himself ³  and says, “I will have peace though I continue to walk with a stubborn spirit.” ⁴  This will destroy ⁵  the watered ground with the parched. ⁶ 

The Lord said to me, “Go, show love to ¹  your wife ²  again, even though she loves ³  another man ⁴  and continually commits adultery. ⁵  Likewise, the Lord loves ⁶  the Israelites ⁷  although they turn to other gods and love to offer raisin cakes to idols.” ⁸ 

When the news reached Joab (for Joab had supported ¹  Adonijah, although he had not supported Absalom), he ²  ran to the tent of the Lord and grabbed hold of the horns of the altar. ³ 

Then I said, ¹  “O Lord, intervene for the honor of your name ²  even though our sins speak out against us. ³  Indeed, ⁴  we have turned away from you many times. We have sinned against you.

I have made your forehead harder than flint – like diamond! ¹  Do not fear them or be terrified of the looks they give you, ²  for they are a rebellious house.”

Even if these three men were in it, as surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, they could not save their own sons or daughters – they would save only their own lives.

Their wealth will be stolen and their houses ruined! They will not live in the houses they have built, nor will they drink the wine from the vineyards they have planted.