⁶ For you are a people holy to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on earth to be his people, his treasured possession.^(A)

⁵ Now, therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine,^{(A) 6} but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the Israelites.”^(B)

¹⁷ For the time has come for judgment to begin with the household of God; if it begins with us, what will be the end for those who do not obey the gospel of God?^(A)

¹⁵ yet the Lord set his heart in love on your ancestors alone and chose you, their descendants after them, out of all the peoples, as it is today.^(A)

⁹ There will be affliction and distress for everyone who does evil, both the Jew first and the Greek,^(A)

³⁶ As I entered into judgment with your ancestors in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so I will enter into judgment with you, says the Lord God.^{(A) 37} I will make you pass under the staff and will bring you within the bond of the covenant.^{(B) 38} I will purge out the rebels among you and those who transgress against me; I will bring them out of the land where they reside as aliens, but they shall not enter the land of Israel. Then you shall know that I am the Lord.^(C)

Woes to Unrepentant Cities

²⁰ Then he began to reproach the cities in which most of his deeds of power had been done because they did not repent. ²¹ “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.^{(A) 22} But I tell you, on the day of judgment it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for you.^{(B) 23} And you, Capernaum,

“For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.^{(C) 24} But I tell you that on the day of judgment it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom than for you.”^(D)

¹⁷ If any of the families of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, there will be no rain upon them.^{(A) 18} And if the family of Egypt do not go up and present themselves, there will be no rain for them; there will be the plague that the Lord inflicts on the nations that do not go up to keep the Festival of Booths.^[a](B)

¹² He has confirmed his words that he spoke against us and against our rulers by bringing upon us a calamity so great that what has been done against Jerusalem has never before been done under the whole heaven.^(A)