Abandon your foolish ways ¹  so that you may live, ²  and proceed ³  in the way of understanding.”

They say, ¹  “God has abandoned him. Run and seize him, for there is no one who will rescue him!”

The answer will come back, “It is because they broke their covenant with the Lord their God and worshiped and served other gods.”

Leave your towns, you inhabitants of Moab. Go and live in the cliffs. Be like a dove that makes its nest high on the sides of a ravine. ¹ 

They will eat, but not be satisfied; they will engage in prostitution, but not increase in numbers; because they have abandoned the Lord by pursuing other gods. ¹ 

Then tell them that the Lord says, ¹  ‘It is because your ancestors ²  rejected me and paid allegiance to ³  other gods. They have served them and worshiped them. But they have rejected me and not obeyed my law. ⁴ 

all Joseph’s household, his brothers, and his father’s household. But they left their little children and their flocks and herds in the land of Goshen.

Then people will say, “Because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord, the God of their ancestors, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt.

The Levites even left their pasturelands and their property behind and came to Judah and Jerusalem, for Jeroboam and his sons prohibited them from serving as the Lord’s priests.

So when the envoys arrived from the Babylonian officials to visit him and inquire about the sign that occurred in the land, ¹  God left him alone to test him, in order to know his true motives. ² 

At that time ¹  their fortified cities will be like the abandoned summits of the Amorites, ²  which they abandoned because of the Israelites; there will be desolation.

You are the one in whom Israel may find hope. ¹  All who leave you will suffer shame. Those who turn away from you ²  will be consigned to the nether world. ³  For they have rejected you, the Lord, the fountain of life. ⁴ 

Others will then answer, ¹  ‘Because they abandoned the Lord their God, who led their ancestors ²  out of Egypt. They embraced other gods whom they worshiped and served. ³  That is why the Lord has brought all this disaster down on them.’”

He answered, “I have been absolutely loyal ¹  to the Lord, the sovereign God, ²  even though the Israelites have abandoned the agreement they made with you, ³  torn down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left and now they want to take my life.” ⁴ 

He answered, “I have been absolutely loyal ¹  to the Lord, the sovereign God, ²  even though the Israelites have abandoned the agreement they made with you, ³  torn down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left and now they want to take my life.” ⁴ 

Others will then answer, ¹  ‘Because they abandoned the Lord God of their ancestors, ²  who led them out of Egypt. They embraced other gods whom they worshiped and served. ³  That is why he brought all this disaster down on them.’”

Even though the invading Syrian army was relatively weak, the Lord handed over to them Judah’s very large army, ¹  for the people of Judah ²  had abandoned the Lord God of their ancestors. The Syrians ³  gave Joash what he deserved. ⁴ 

When they withdrew, they left Joash ¹  badly wounded. His servants plotted against him because of what he had done to ²  the son ³  of Jehoiada the priest. They murdered him on his bed. Thus ⁴  he died and was buried in the City of David, ⁵  but not in the tombs of the kings.

¹ The sinful nation is as good as dead, ²  the people weighed down by evil deeds. They are offspring who do wrong, children ³  who do wicked things. They have abandoned the Lord, and rejected the Holy One of Israel. ⁴  They are alienated from him. ⁵ 

“Do so because my people have committed a double wrong: they have rejected me, the fountain of life-giving water, ¹  and they have dug cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns which cannot even hold water.”