It is similar for lifeless things that make a sound, like a flute or harp. Unless they make a distinction in the notes, how can what is played on the flute or harp be understood?

They worshiped ¹  Baal of Peor, and ate sacrifices offered to the dead. ² 

I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars, ¹  and I will stack your dead bodies on top of the lifeless bodies of your idols. ²  I will abhor you. ³ 

Before I restore them ¹  I will punish them in full ²  for their sins and the wrongs they have done. For they have polluted my land with the lifeless statues of their disgusting idols. They have filled the land I have claimed as my own ³  with their detestable idols.” ⁴ 

The one who says to wood, ‘Wake up!’ is as good as dead ¹  – he who says ²  to speechless stone, ‘Awake!’ Can it give reliable guidance? ³  It is overlaid with gold and silver; it has no life’s breath inside it.

But sin, seizing the opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of wrong desires. ¹  For apart from the law, sin is dead.

I myself will make the land desolate and your enemies who live in it will be appalled.

For all the gods of the nations are worthless, ¹  but the Lord made the heavens. ² 

For all the gods of the nations are worthless, ¹  but the Lord made the sky.

Ephraim will be ruined in the day of judgment! ¹  What I am declaring ²  to the tribes of Israel will certainly take place! ³ 

For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.

Between her feet he collapsed, he fell limp ¹  and was lifeless; ²  between her feet he collapsed and fell limp, in the spot where he collapsed, there he fell limp – violently murdered! ³ 

The earth ¹  dries up ²  and withers, the world shrivels up and withers; the prominent people of the earth ³  fade away.

Now they must put away their spiritual prostitution and the pillars of their kings far from me, and then I will live among them forever.

The crops of the fields ¹  have been destroyed. ²  The ground is in mourning because the grain has perished. The fresh wine has dried up; the olive oil languishes.

You must no longer say that the Lord’s message is burdensome. ¹  For what is ‘burdensome’ ²  really pertains to what a person himself says. ³  You are misrepresenting ⁴  the words of our God, the living God, the Lord who rules over all. ⁵ 

The earth will tremble and writhe in agony. ¹  For the Lord will carry out his plan. He plans to make the land of Babylonia ²  a wasteland where no one lives. ³ 

Therefore the land will mourn, and all its inhabitants will perish. ¹  The wild animals, ²  the birds of the sky, and even the fish in the sea will perish.

how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our ¹  consciences from dead works to worship the living God.

These men are ¹  dangerous reefs ²  at your love feasts, ³  feasting without reverence, ⁴  feeding only themselves. ⁵  They are ⁶  waterless ⁷  clouds, carried along by the winds; autumn trees without fruit ⁸  – twice dead, ⁹  uprooted;