They will return to Egypt! ¹  Assyria will rule over them ²  because they refuse to repent! ³ 

I have listened to them very carefully, ¹  but they do not speak honestly. None of them regrets the evil he has done. None of them says, “I have done wrong!” ²  All of them persist in their own wayward course ³  like a horse charging recklessly into battle.

And he reveals ¹  this ²  for correction, and says that they must turn ³  from evil.

“I baptize you with water, for repentance, but the one coming after me is more powerful than I am – I am not worthy ¹  to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. ² 

Therefore produce ¹  fruit ²  that proves your repentance, and don’t begin to say ³  to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ ⁴  For I tell you that God can raise up children for Abraham from these stones! ⁵ 

The rest of humanity, who had not been killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, so that they did not stop worshiping demons and idols made ¹  of gold, silver, ²  bronze, stone, and wood – idols that cannot see or hear or walk about.

The Preeminent One ¹  of Israel does not go back on his word ²  or change his mind, for he is not a human being who changes his mind.” ³ 

For it is impossible in the case of those who have once been enlightened, tasted the heavenly gift, become partakers of the Holy Spirit,

Recently, however, you yourselves ¹  showed a change of heart and did what is pleasing to me. You granted your fellow countrymen their freedom and you made a covenant to that effect in my presence in the house that I have claimed for my own. ² 

But have my words and statutes, which I commanded my servants the prophets, not outlived your fathers? ¹  Then they paid attention ²  and confessed, ‘The Lord who rules over all has indeed done what he said he would do to us, because of our sinful ways.’”

“A protector ¹  comes to Zion, to those in Jacob who repent of their rebellious deeds,” ²  says the Lord.

God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a human being, ¹  that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not make it happen? ² 

Serve ¹  the Lord in fear! Repent in terror! ² 

But then Hezekiah and the residents of Jerusalem humbled themselves and abandoned their pride, and the Lord was not angry with them for the rest of Hezekiah’s reign. ¹ 

Go and learn what this saying means: ‘I want mercy and not sacrifice.’ ¹  For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Lord, I know you look for faithfulness. ¹  But even when you punish these people, they feel no remorse. ²  Even when you nearly destroy them, they refuse to be corrected. They have become as hardheaded as a rock. ³  They refuse to change their ways. ⁴ 

For this is what the master, the Lord, the Holy One of Israel says: “If you repented and patiently waited for me, you would be delivered; ¹  if you calmly trusted in me you would find strength, ²  but you are unwilling.

When Jesus heard this he said to them, “Those who are healthy don’t need a physician, but those who are sick do. ¹  I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.

but when one ¹  turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. ²