The Lord answered, ¹  “This will happen ²  because my people are foolish. They do not know me. They are like children who have no sense. ³  They have no understanding. They are skilled at doing evil. They do not know how to do good.”

The Lord says to the people of Judah, ¹  “What right do you have to be in my temple, my beloved people? ²  Many of you have done wicked things. ³  Can your acts of treachery be so easily canceled by sacred offerings ⁴  that you take joy in doing evil even while you make them? ⁵ 

So now, tell the people of Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem ¹  this: The Lord says, ‘I am preparing to bring disaster on you! I am making plans to punish you. ²  So, every one of you, stop the evil things you have been doing. ³  Correct the way you have been living and do what is right.’ ⁴ 

Maybe they will pay attention and each of them will stop living the evil way they do. ¹  If they do that, then I will forgo destroying them ²  as I had intended to do because of the wicked things they have been doing. ³ 

As soon as Jehudi had read three or four columns ¹  of the scroll, the king ²  would cut them off with a penknife ³  and throw them on the fire in the firepot. He kept doing so until the whole scroll was burned up in the fire. ⁴ 

He said to me, “Do you see, son of man, what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, each in the chamber of his idolatrous images? ¹  For they think, ‘The Lord does not see us! The Lord has abandoned the land!’”

But this one from Israel’s royal family ¹  rebelled against the king of Babylon ²  by sending his emissaries to Egypt to obtain horses and a large army. Will he prosper? Will the one doing these things escape? Can he break the covenant and escape?

“Men, why are you doing these things? We too are men, with human natures ¹  just like you! We are proclaiming the good news to you, so that you should turn ²  from these worthless ³  things to the living God, who made the heaven, the earth, ⁴  the sea, and everything that is in them.

Therefore when I was planning to do this, I did not do so without thinking about what I was doing, did I? ¹  Or do I make my plans ²  according to mere human standards ³  so that I would be saying ⁴  both “Yes, yes” and “No, no” at the same time?

Therefore, if I come, ¹  I will call attention to the deeds he is doing ²  – the bringing of unjustified charges against us with evil words! And not being content with that, he not only refuses to welcome the brothers himself, but hinders the people who want to do so and throws them out of the church!

Now the entire family has risen up against your servant, saying, ‘Turn over the one who struck down his brother, so that we can execute him and avenge the death ¹  of his brother whom he killed. In so doing we will also destroy the heir.’ They want to extinguish my remaining coal, ²  leaving no one on the face of the earth to carry on the name of my husband.”