A Call to Repentance

⁶ The Lord said to me in the days of King Josiah: Have you seen what she did, that faithless one, Israel, how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree and prostituted herself there?^{(A) 7} And I thought, “After she has done all this she will return to me,” but she did not return, and her false sister Judah saw it.^{(B) 8} She^[a] saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce, yet her false sister Judah did not fear, but she also went and prostituted herself.^{(C) 9} Because she took her prostitution so lightly, she polluted the land, committing adultery with stone and tree.^{(D) 10} Yet for all this her false sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart but only in pretense, says the Lord.^(E)

¹¹ Then the Lord said to me: Faithless Israel has shown herself less guilty than false Judah.^{(F) 12} Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say:

¹⁵ I will give you shepherds after my own heart who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.^{(J) 16} And when you have multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, says the Lord, they shall no longer say, “The ark of the covenant of the Lord.” It shall not come to mind or be remembered or missed, nor shall another one be made.^{(K) 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.^{(L) 18} In those days the house of Judah shall join the house of Israel, and together they shall come from the land of the north to the land that I gave your ancestors for a heritage.^(M)

²⁸ And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them over to an unfit mind and to do things that should not be done.^{(A) 29} They were filled with every kind of injustice, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gossips, ³⁰ slanderers, God-haters,^[a] insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents,^{(B) 31} foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.^{(C) 32} They know God’s decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die, yet they not only do them but even applaud others who practice them.^(D)

The Righteous Judgment of God

2 Therefore you are without excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others, for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things.^{(E) 2} We know that God’s judgment on those who do such things is in accordance with truth. ³ Do you imagine, whoever you are, that when you judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself, you will escape the judgment of God? ⁴ Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?^{(F) 5} But by your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.^{(G) 6} He will repay according to each one’s deeds:^{(H) 7} to those who by patiently doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life, ⁸ while for those who are self-seeking and who obey not the truth but injustice, there will be wrath and fury.^{(I) 9} There will be affliction and distress for everyone who does evil, both the Jew first and the Greek,^{(J) 10} but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, both the Jew first and the Greek. ¹¹ For God shows no partiality.^(K)

Jesus Heals on the Sabbath

5 After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

² Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew^[a] Beth-zatha,^[b] which has five porticoes.^{(A) 3} In these lay many ill, blind, lame, and paralyzed people.^{[c] 5} One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. ⁶ When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” ⁷ The ill man answered him, “Sir,^[d] I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am making my way someone else steps down ahead of me.” ⁸ Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.”^{(B) 9} At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.

Now that day was a Sabbath.^{(C) 10} So the Jews said to the man who had been cured, “It is the Sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.”^{(D) 11} But he answered them, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Take up your mat and walk.’ ” ¹² They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take it up and walk’?” ¹³ Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had disappeared in^[e] the crowd that was there. ¹⁴ Later Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you have been made well! Do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you.”^{(E) 15} The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. ¹⁶ Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus, because he was doing such things on the Sabbath. ¹⁷ But Jesus answered them, “My Father is still working, and I also am working.”^{(F) 18} For this reason the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the Sabbath but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God.^(G)