False and True Worship

¹⁵ Declare these things; exhort and reprove with all authority.^[a] Let no one look down on you.

²⁶ Therefore I declare to you this day that I am not responsible for the blood of any of you,^{(A) 27} for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God.^(B)

Israel’s Apostasy

⁵¹ “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you are forever opposing the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do.^{(A) 52} Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, and now you have become his betrayers and murderers.^(B)

⁷ But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for his^[a] baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?^{(A) 8} Therefore, bear fruit worthy of repentance,^{(B) 9} and do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.^(C)

¹⁷ Mortal, I have made you a sentinel for the house of Israel; whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me.^{(A) 18} When I say to the wicked, “You shall surely die,” and you give them no warning and do not speak to warn the wicked from their wicked way in order to save their lives, those wicked persons shall die for their iniquity, but their blood I will require at your hand.^{(B) 19} But if you warn the wicked and they do not turn from their wickedness or from their wicked way, they shall die for their iniquity, but you will have saved your life.^{(C) 20} Again, if the righteous turn from their righteousness and commit iniquity and I lay a stumbling block before them, they shall die; because you have not warned them, they shall die for their sin, and their righteous deeds that they have done shall not be remembered, but their blood I will require at your hand.^{(D) 21} If, however, you warn the righteous not to sin and they do not sin, they shall surely live because they took warning, and you will have saved your life.^(E)

⁹ Then another angel, a third, followed them, crying with a loud voice, “Those who worship the beast and its image and receive the brand on their foreheads or on their hands,^{(A) 10} they will also drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured unmixed into the cup of his anger, and they will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.^(B)