The Day of the Lord

You, Lord, have abandoned your people, the descendants of Jacob. They are full of superstitions from the East; they practice divination like the Philistines and embrace pagan customs.

Behind your doors and your doorposts you have put your pagan symbols. Forsaking me, you uncovered your bed, you climbed into it and opened it wide; you made a pact with those whose beds you love, and you looked with lust on their naked bodies.

The enemy laid hands on all her treasures; she saw pagan nations enter her sanctuary— those you had forbidden to enter your assembly.

“Therefore this is what the Lord says: “‘Your wife will become a prostitute in the city, and your sons and daughters will fall by the sword. Your land will be measured and divided up, and you yourself will die in a pagan country. And Israel will surely go into exile, away from their native land.’”

And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?

And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.

For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.

If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your Father knows that you need them.

Dealing With a Case of Incest

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate: A man is sleeping with his father’s wife.

No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons.

You know that when you were pagans, somehow or other you were influenced and led astray to mute idols.

not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God;

Living Godly Lives in a Pagan Society

Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul.

Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.

For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry.

It was for the sake of the Name that they went out, receiving no help from the pagans.