O Lord, teach me how you want me to live! ¹  Then I will obey your commands. ²  Make me wholeheartedly committed to you! ³ 

I will not even consider doing what is dishonest. ¹  I hate doing evil; ²  I will have no part of it. ³ 

He shouted at ¹  the Red Sea and it dried up; he led them through the deep water as if it were a desert.

As for those who are bent on traveling a sinful path, ¹  may the Lord remove them, ²  along with those who behave wickedly! ³  May Israel experience peace! ⁴ 

Teach me to do what pleases you, ¹  for you are my God. May your kind presence ²  lead me ³  into a level land. ⁴ 

This alone have I discovered: God made humankind upright, but they have sought many evil schemes.

The leaders of this nation were misleading people, and the people being led were destroyed. ¹ 

For ¹  evil burned like a fire, ²  it consumed thorns and briers; it burned up the thickets of the forest, and they went up in smoke. ³ 

“Look, I am about to do something new. Now it begins to happen! ¹  Do you not recognize ²  it? Yes, I will make a road in the desert and paths ³  in the wilderness.

I spread out my hands all day long to my rebellious people, who lived in a way that is morally unacceptable, and who did what they desired. ¹ 

You have brought all this on yourself, Israel, ¹  by deserting the Lord your God when he was leading you along the right path. ² 

So, this is what the Lord says: ‘I will assuredly ¹  make these people stumble to their doom. ²  Parents and children will stumble and fall to their destruction. ³  Friends and neighbors will die.’

Why, then, do these people of Jerusalem ¹  continually turn away from me in apostasy? They hold fast to their deception. ²  They refuse to turn back to me. ³ 

Let cries of terror be heard in their houses when you send bands of raiders unexpectedly to plunder them. ¹  For they have virtually dug a pit to capture me and have hidden traps for me to step into.

so that the house of Israel will no longer go astray from me, nor continue to defile themselves by all their sins. They will be my people and I will be their God, ¹  declares the sovereign Lord.’”

we have sinned! We have done what is wrong and wicked; we have rebelled by turning away from your commandments and standards.

But the wise will shine like the brightness of the heavenly expanse. And those bringing many to righteousness will be like the stars forever and ever.

You, however, have turned from the way. You have caused many to violate the law; ¹  you have corrupted the covenant with Levi,” ²  says the Lord who rules over all.

John ¹  said, “I am the voice of one shouting in the wilderness, ‘Make straight ²  the way for the Lord,’ ³  as Isaiah the prophet said.”

Why not? Because they pursued ¹  it not by faith but (as if it were possible) by works. ²  They stumbled over the stumbling stone, ³