¹⁰ This evil people, who refuse to hear my words, who stubbornly follow their own will and have gone after other gods to serve them and worship them, shall be like this loincloth, which is good for nothing.^(A)

¹² and because you have behaved worse than your ancestors, for here you are, every one of you, following your stubborn evil will, refusing to listen to me.^(A)

¹⁴ but have stubbornly followed their own hearts and have gone after the Baals, as their ancestors taught them.^(A)

The Fall of Jerusalem

¹⁵ The Lord, the God of their ancestors, sent persistently to them by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place,^{(A) 16} but they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words, and scoffing at his prophets until the wrath of the Lord against his people became so great that there was no remedy.^(B)

¹¹ And the Lord said to Moses, “How long will this people despise me? And how long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them?^(A)

The Old Life and the New

¹⁷ Now this I affirm and insist on in the Lord: you must no longer walk as the^[a] gentiles walk, in the futility of their minds;^{(A) 18} they are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart.^{(B) 19} They have lost all sensitivity and have abandoned themselves to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.

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)

⁷ Then I went to the Euphrates^[a] and dug, and I took the loincloth from the place where I had hidden it. But now the loincloth was ruined; it was good for nothing.

⁷ For I solemnly warned your ancestors when I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, warning them persistently, even to this day, saying, “Obey my voice.”^{(A) 8} Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but everyone walked in the stubbornness of an evil will. So I brought upon them all the words of this covenant, which I commanded them to do, but they did not.^(B)

¹⁷ At that time Jerusalem shall be called the throne of the Lord, and all nations shall gather to it, to the presence of the Lord in Jerusalem, and they shall no longer stubbornly follow their own evil will.^(A)