All of us had wandered off like sheep; each of us had strayed off on his own path, but the Lord caused the sin of all of us to attack him. ¹ 

The person who gathers wealth by unjust means is like the partridge that broods over eggs but does not hatch them. ¹  Before his life is half over he will lose his ill-gotten gains. ²  At the end of his life it will be clear he was a fool.” ³ 

Yet my people have forgotten me and offered sacrifices to worthless idols! This makes them stumble along in the way they live and leave the old reliable path of their fathers. ¹  They have left them to walk in bypaths, in roads that are not smooth and level. ² 

So my heart moans for Moab like a flute playing a funeral song. Yes, like a flute playing a funeral song, my heart moans for the people of Kir Heres. For the wealth they have gained will perish.

to loot and plunder, to attack ¹  the inhabited ruins and the people gathered from the nations, who are acquiring cattle and goods, who live at the center ²  of the earth.”

Israel has forgotten his Maker and built royal palaces, and Judah has built many fortified cities. But I will send fire on their cities; it will consume their royal citadels.

Ephraim boasts, ¹  “I am very rich! I have become wealthy! ²  In all that I have done to gain my wealth, ³  no one can accuse me of any offense ⁴  that is actually sinful.” ⁵ 

“Get up and thresh, Daughter Zion! For I will give you iron horns; ¹  I will give you bronze hooves, and you will crush many nations.” ²  You will devote to the Lord the spoils you take from them, and dedicate their wealth to the sovereign Ruler ³  of the whole earth. ⁴ 

In that day you ¹  will not be ashamed of all your rebelliousness against me, ²  for then I will remove from your midst those who proudly boast, ³  and you will never again be arrogant on my holy hill.

And it will come about that just as you (both Judah and Israel) were a curse to the nations, so I will save you and you will be a blessing. Do not be afraid! Instead, be strong!’

But now plead for God’s favor ¹  that he might be gracious to us. ²  “With this kind of offering in your hands, how can he be pleased with you?” asks the Lord who rules over all.

Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they go in and live there, so ¹  the last state of that person ²  is worse than the first.” ³ 

He motioned to them ¹  with his hand to be quiet and then related ²  how the Lord had brought ³  him out of the prison. He said, “Tell James and the brothers these things,” and then he left and went to another place. ⁴ 

But I have not used any of these rights. And I am not writing these things so that something will be done for me. ¹  In fact, it would be better for me to die than – no one will deprive me of my reason for boasting! ² 

Is the law therefore opposed to the promises of God? ¹  Absolutely not! For if a law had been given that was able to give life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law. ² 

For we are his workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand so we may do them. ¹ 

For from you the message of the Lord ¹  has echoed forth not just in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place reports of your faith in God have spread, ²  so that we do not need to say anything.

because they hinder us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. Thus they constantly fill up their measure of sins, ¹  but wrath ²  has come upon them completely. ³ 

So ¹  when I could bear it no longer, I sent to find out about your faith, for fear that the tempter somehow tempted you and our toil had proven useless.

For all the nations ¹  have fallen ²  from the wine of her immoral passion, ³  and the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have gotten rich from the power of her sensual behavior.” ⁴