Old/New Testament
3 ¶ They say, If a man puts away his wife and she goes from him and becomes another man’s, shall he return unto her again? Is she not a land that is now completely polluted? but thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me, said the LORD.
2 Lift up thine eyes unto the high places and see if there is anywhere thou hast not been ravished. In the ways hast thou sat for them, as the Arabian in the wilderness; and thou hast polluted the land with thy whoredoms and with thy wickedness.
3 Therefore the rain has been withheld, and there has been no latter rain; and thou dost have a whore’s forehead, thou dost refuse to be ashamed.
4 Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me, My father, thou art the guide of my youth?
5 Will he reserve his anger for ever? will he keep it to the end? Behold, thou hast spoken and done as many evil things as thou could.
6 ¶ The LORD said unto me in the days of Josiah the king, Hast thou seen that which rebellious Israel has done? She is gone up upon every high mountain and under every green tree, and there has played the harlot.
7 And I said after she had done all these things, Turn thou unto me. But she did not return. And her rebellious sister Judah saw it.
8 And I saw when for all the causes by which rebellious Israel committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a bill of divorce; yet her rebellious sister Judah did not fear, but went and played the harlot also.
9 And it came to pass through her judging her whoredom to be a light thing that the land became defiled and committed adultery with stones and with stocks.
10 And yet for all this her rebellious sister Judah has never turned unto me with her whole heart, but untruthfully, said the LORD.
11 And the LORD said unto me, The rebellious Israel has justified her soul in comparison to the treacherous Judah.
12 ¶ Go and proclaim these words toward the north wind and say, Return, thou rebellious Israel, said the LORD and I will not cause my anger to fall upon you; for I am merciful, said the LORD, and I will not keep anger for ever.
13 Only acknowledge thine iniquity that thou hast rebelled against the LORD thy God and hast scattered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree, and ye have not heard my voice, said the LORD.
14 Turn, O rebellious sons, said the LORD; for I am your Lord, and I will take you one of a city and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion:
15 And I will give you pastors according to my heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.
16 And it shall come to pass, when ye are multiplied and increased in the land; in those days, said the LORD, they shall no longer say, The ark of the covenant of the LORD: neither shall it come to mind: neither shall they remember it; neither shall they visit it; neither shall that be done any more.
17 At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the LORD; and all the Gentiles shall congregate unto it in the name of the LORD in Jerusalem; neither shall they walk any more after the hardness of their evil heart.
18 In those times they shall go out from the house of Judah unto the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north wind to the land which I caused your fathers to inherit.
19 But I said, How shall I place thee as sons and give thee the desirable land, the heritage that the hosts of Gentiles desire? and I said, Thou shalt call me, My father, and shalt not turn away from following me.
20 ¶ Surely as the woman breaks the faith of her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, said the LORD.
21 A voice was heard upon the high places, weeping of the supplications of the sons of Israel; for they have perverted their way, and they have forgotten the LORD their God.
22 Return, ye rebellious sons, and I will heal your rebellion. Behold, we come unto thee; for thou art the LORD our God.
23 Truly the hills are vanity, the multitude of mountains; truly in the LORD our God is the salvation of Israel.
24 For shame has devoured the labour of our fathers from our youth: their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters.
25 We lie down in our shame, and our confusion covers us; for we have sinned against the LORD our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even unto this day, and have not hearkened unto the voice of the LORD our God.
4 ¶ If thou wilt return unto me, O Israel, said the LORD, thou shalt have rest; and if thou wilt put away thine abominations out of my sight, then thou shalt not go into captivity.
2 And thou shalt swear, The LORD lives, in truth, in judgment, and in righteousness; and the Gentiles shall bless themselves in him, and in him shall they glory.
3 ¶ For thus has the LORD said to every man of Judah and of Jerusalem, Break up your fallow ground, and do not sow among thorns.
4 Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, and take away the foreskins of your heart, ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem lest my fury come forth like fire and burn so that no one can quench it because of the evil of your doings.
5 ¶ Declare ye in Judah and publish in Jerusalem and say, Blow ye the shofar in the land; cry, gather together, and say, Assemble yourselves, and let us go into the defenced cities.
6 Set up the banner in Zion: come together, do not delay: for I bring evil from the north wind, and a great destruction.
7 The lion is come up from his den, and the destroyer of the Gentiles is on his way; he is gone forth from his place to make thy land desolate; and thy cities shall be laid waste, without an inhabitant.
8 For this, gird yourselves with sackcloth; lament and howl; for the fierce anger of the LORD is not turned back from us.
9 And it shall come to pass at that day, saith the LORD, that the heart of the king shall perish, and the heart of the princes; and the priests shall be astonished, and the prophets shall wonder.
10 (Then I said, Ah, Lord GOD! surely thou hast greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, Ye shall have peace; when the sword reaches unto the soul.)
11 At that time it shall be said to this people and to Jerusalem, A dry wind of the high places of the wilderness came toward the daughter of my people, not to fan, nor to cleanse.
12 A wind much more violent than these shall come unto me; for now I will also speak judgments against them.
13 Behold, he shall come up as a cloud, and his chariots as a whirlwind; his horses are swifter than eagles. Woe unto us, for we are given over to be spoiled!
14 O Jerusalem, wash thine heart from wickedness that thou may be saved. How long shalt thou entertain the thoughts of thy iniquity within thee?
15 For the voice is heard from him who brings the news from Dan and from him who causes to hear the affliction from Mount Ephraim.
16 Say ye of the Gentiles; behold, cause it to be heard upon Jerusalem, Watchmen come from a far country and shall give out their voice upon the cities of Judah.
17 As the watchmen of the heritages, they were upon her round about because she has been rebellious against me, saith the LORD.
18 Thy way and thy doings have procured these things unto thee; this is thy wickedness because it is bitter, because it reaches unto thine heart.
19 ¶ My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my very heart; my heart makes a noise in me; I cannot hold my peace because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the shofar, the alarm of war.
20 Destruction upon destruction is cried, for the whole land is destroyed; suddenly are my tents destroyed, and my curtains in a moment.
21 How long shall I see the banner and hear the voice of the shofar?
22 For my people are foolish; the ignorant sons with no understanding have not known me; they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.
23 I beheld the earth, and, behold, it was without order, and empty; and the heavens, and they had no light.
24 I beheld the mountains, and, behold, they trembled, and all the hills were destroyed.
25 I beheld, and, behold, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens had fled.
26 I beheld, and, behold, Carmel was a wilderness, and all its cities were broken down at the presence of the LORD and by his fierce anger.
27 For thus hath the LORD said, The whole land shall be desolate; yet I will not make a full end.
28 For this shall the earth be made desolate, and the heavens above be darkened because I spoke; I purposed and did not repent, neither will I turn back from it.
29 The whole city fled from the thunder of the horsemen and bowmen; they went into the thickets of the forests and climbed up upon the rocks; every city was forsaken, and not a man dwells therein.
30 And thou who art destroyed, what wilt thou do? Though thou clothe thyself with crimson, though thou deck thee with ornaments of gold, though thou paint thy eyes with antimony, in vain shalt thou make thyself fair; thy lovers will despise thee; they will seek thy life.
31 For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, the anguish as of her that brings forth her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, that bewails herself, that spreads her hands, saying, Woe is me now! for my soul is faint because of the murderers.
5 ¶ Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem and see now and find out and seek in the broad places thereof, if ye can find a man, if there be any that execute judgment, that seek the truth; and I will pardon the city.
2 And if they should say, The LORD lives; surely they swear falsely.
3 O LORD, are not thine eyes upon the truth? Thou hast stricken them, but they did not feel it; thou hast consumed them, but they have refused to receive chastisement; they have made their faces harder than a rock; they have refused to return.
4 Therefore I said, Surely these are poor; they have become foolish; for they do not know the way of the LORD nor the judgment of their God.
5 I will go unto the great men, and will speak unto them; for they have known the way of the LORD, and the judgment of their God: but these have altogether broken the yoke and burst the bonds.
6 Therefore a lion out of the forest shall slay them, and a wolf of the desert shall destroy them and a tiger shall lie in wait over their cities; anyone that goes out from there shall be torn in pieces because their rebellions have been multiplied, and their backslidings are increased.
7 How shall I pardon thee for this? Thy sons have forsaken me and sworn by them that are not gods: when I had fed them to the full, they then committed adultery and assembled themselves by troops in the harlots’ houses.
8 They were as fed horses in the morning; each one neighed after his neighbour’s wife.
9 Shall I not visit for these things? said the LORD; and shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?
10 ¶ Go ye up upon her walls and destroy; but make not a full end; take away her battlements for they are not the LORD’s.
11 For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have made a firm decision to rebel against me, saith the LORD.
12 They have denied the LORD and said, He is not; and evil shall not come upon us; neither shall we see sword nor famine;
13 but the prophets shall become like wind, and there is no word in them: thus shall it be done unto them.
14 Therefore thus hath the LORD God of the hosts said: Because ye have spoken this word, behold, I will make my words in thy mouth fire and this people wood, and it shall devour them.
15 Behold, I will bring a nation upon you from afar, O house of Israel, saith the LORD; it is a mighty nation, it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language thou dost not know, neither dost thou understand what they say.
16 Their quiver is as an open sepulcher; they are all mighty men.
17 And they shall eat up thine harvest and thy bread, which thy sons and thy daughters should eat: they shall eat up thy flocks and thine herds; they shall eat up thy vines and thy fig trees; and thy fenced cities, in which thou dost trust, they shall bring to nothing with the sword.
18 Nevertheless in those days, saith the LORD, I will not make a full end with you.
19 And it shall come to pass, when ye shall say, Why does the LORD our God do all these things unto us? Then thou shalt answer them, Like as ye have forsaken me and served strange gods in your land, so shall ye serve strangers in a land that is not yours.
20 ¶ Declare this in the house of Jacob and publish it in Judah, saying,
21 Hear now this, O foolish people and without heart, who have eyes and do not see; who have ears, and do not hear:
22 Do ye not fear me? saith the LORD; will ye not tremble at my presence, who placed the sand for the bound of the sea by an eternal order, which cannot be broken? Storms shall raise themselves up, yet they shall not prevail; their waves shall roar, yet they shall not pass over it.
23 But this people have a false and rebellious heart; they turned and went.
24 Neither do they say in their heart, Let us now fear the LORD our God that gives rain, both the former and the latter, in its season; he shall keep us with the appointed weeks of the harvest.
25 ¶ Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withheld good things from you.
26 For among my people were found wicked men: they lay in wait as he that sets snares; they set a trap of perdition to catch men.
27 As a cage full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit; thus they became great and rich.
28 They are become fat; they shine; yea, they overpass in deeds of wickedness; they did not judge the cause, the cause of the fatherless; with all this they made themselves prosperous; and they did not judge the cause of the poor.
29 Shall I not visit for these things? saith the LORD; shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?
30 A horrible and ugly thing is committed in the land:
31 The prophets prophesied falsely, and the priests bore rule by their hands; and my people love to have it so. What will ye do in the end thereof?
4 ¶ Now the Spirit speaks expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, listening to spirits of error and doctrines of demons;
2 that in hypocrisy shall speak lies; having their conscience seared as with a hot iron;
3 they shall forbid to marry and shall command men to abstain from foods, which God has created to be received with thanksgiving by those who are faithful and have known the truth.
4 For everything that God created is good, and nothing is to be refused, if it is received with thanksgiving,
5 for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.
6 ¶ If thou put these things before the brethren, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine, unto which thou hast attained.
7 But refuse profane and old wives’ fables, and exercise thyself rather unto godliness.
8 For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come.
9 The Word is faithful and worthy of acceptation by all.
10 For this we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe.
11 Command and teach this.
12 Let no man despise thy youth, but be thou an example of the faithful in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.
13 Until I come, occupy thyself reading, exhorting, teaching.
14 Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which is given unto thee to prophesy, through the laying on of the hands of the elders.
15 Occupy thyself in these things with care, for in this is everything, that thy profiting may be manifest unto all.
16 Take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine; be diligent in this, for in doing so thou shalt both save thyself and those that hear thee.
Copyright © 2013, 2020 by Ransom Press International