Old/New Testament
22 Moreover, the Word of the LORD came to me, saying:
2 “Now, you son of man, will you judge? Will you judge this bloody city? Will you show her all her abominations?
3 “Then say, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: “The city sheds blood in the midst of herself, so that her time may come, and makes idols near herself, to pollute herself.
4 “You have offended in your blood, so that you have shed, and have polluted yourself in your idols which you have made. And you have caused your days to draw near and have come to your term. Therefore, I have made you a reproach to the heathen, and a mockery to all countries.
5 “Those who are near and those who are far from you shall mock you, vile in name and great in affliction.
6 “Behold the princes of Israel. Each has used his power to shed blood.
7 “In you they have despised father and mother. In the midst of you they have oppressed the stranger. In you they have troubled the fatherless and the widow.
8 “You have despised My holy things and have polluted My Sabbaths.
9 “In you are men who carry tales to shed blood. In you are those who eat upon the mountains. In your midst they commit abomination.
10 “In you they have discovered their fathers’ shame. In you have they defiled her who was polluted in her impurity.
11 “And everyone has committed abomination with his neighbor’s wife, and everyone has wickedly defiled his daughter-in-law, and in you has every man forced his own sister, his father’s daughter.
12 “In you they have taken bribes to shed blood. You have taken interest and the increase, and you have defrauded your neighbors by extortion, and have forgotten Me,” says the Lord GOD.
13 “Behold, therefore, I have stricken My Hands at your covetousness that you have used, and upon the blood which has been in your midst.
14 “Can your heart endure, or can your hands be strong in the days that I shall have to do with you? I, the LORD, have spoken it and will do it.
15 “And I will scatter you among the heathen, and disperse you in the countries, and will cause your filthiness to cease from you.
16 “And you shall take your inheritance in yourself in the sight of the heathen. And you shall know that I am the LORD.”’”
17 And the Word of the LORD came to me, saying:
18 “Son of man, the House of Israel is to me as dross. All of them are bronze, tin, iron, and lead in the midst of the furnace. They are the dross of silver.”
19 Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: “Because you are all like dross, behold, therefore, I will gather you in the midst of Jerusalem.
20 “As they gather silver and bronze, and iron, and lead, and tin into the midst of the furnace, to blow the fire upon it to melt it, so I will gather you in My anger and in My wrath and will put you there and melt you.
21 “I will gather you, I say, and blow the fire of My wrath upon you. And you shall be melted in its midst.
22 “As silver is melted in the midst of the furnace, so shall you be melted in its midst. And you shall know that I, the LORD, have poured out My wrath upon you.”
23 And the Word of the LORD came to me, saying:
24 “Son of man, say to her, ‘You are the land that is unclean, not rained upon on the day of wrath.’
25 “A conspiracy of her prophets in her midst is like a roaring lion, ravening the prey. They have devoured souls. They have taken the riches and precious things. They have made her many widows in her midst.
26 “Her priests have broken My Law and have defiled My holy things. They have put no difference between the holy and profane or discerned between the unclean and the clean. They have hidden their eyes from My Sabbaths, and I am profaned among them.
27 “Her princes in her midst are like wolves, ravening the prey to shed blood, to destroy souls for their own unjust gain.
28 “And her prophets have daubed them with untempered mortar, seeing vanities, and divining lies to them, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD,’ when the LORD had not spoken.
29 “The people of the land have violently oppressed by plundering and robbing and have violently mistreated the poor and the needy. Yea, they have wrongfully oppressed the stranger.
30 “And I sought for a man among them who would make up the hedge and stand in the gap before Me, for the land, so that I would not destroy it. But I found none.
31 “Therefore, I have poured out My indignation upon them, and consumed them with the fire of My wrath. I have rendered their own ways upon their heads,” says the Lord GOD.
23 The Word of the LORD came again to me, saying:
2 “Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of one mother.
3 “And they committed fornication in Egypt. They committed fornication in their youth. There, their breasts were pressed, and there they bruised the teats of their virginity.
4 “And their names were Oholah (the elder) and Oholibah, her sister. And they were Mine. And they bore sons and daughters. These were their names: Samaria is Oholah and Jerusalem, Oholibah.
5 “And Oholah played the harlot when she was Mine. And she was set on fire with her lovers, with the Assyrians, her neighbors,
6 “who were clothed with blue silk, captains and princes. They were all pleasant young men, horsemen riding upon horses.
7 “Thus she committed her whoredom with them, with all of the chosen men of Assyria and with all after whom she lusted, defiling herself with all their idols.
8 “Nor has she left her fornications from the Egyptians. For in her youth, they lay with her, and they bruised the breasts of her virginity and poured their whoredom upon her.
9 “Therefore, I delivered her into the hands of her lovers, into the hands of the Assyrians, after whom she lusted.
10 “They uncovered her shame. They took away her sons and her daughters and killed her with the sword. And she became infamous among women, for they had executed judgment upon her.
11 “And when her sister Oholibah saw this, she corrupted herself with lust more than she, and with her fornications more than her sister’s fornications.
12 “She lusted after the Assyrians her neighbors, captains and princes clothed with diverse suits, horsemen riding upon horses. They were all pleasant young men.
13 “Then I saw that she was defiled, that they were both in the same way,
14 “and that she increased her fornications. For when she saw men painted upon the wall—the images of the Chaldeans painted with vermilion
15 “and girded with girdles upon their loins, and with dyed attire upon their heads (all looking like princes, after the manner of the Babylonians in Chaldea, the land of their nativity) —
16 “as soon, I say, as she saw them, she lusted after them, and sent messengers to them, into Chaldea.
17 “Now, when the Babylonians came to her, into the bed of love, they defiled her with their fornication. And she was polluted with them. And her lust departed from them.
18 “So she discovered her fornication and disclosed her shame. Then My Heart forsook her, just as My Heart had forsaken her sister.
19 “Still, she increased her whoredom more and called to remembrance the days of her youth in which she had played the harlot in the land of Egypt.
20 “For she lusted after their servants whose members are as the members of donkeys, and whose issue is like the issue of horses.
21 “You call to remembrance the wickedness of your youth, when your teats were bruised by the Egyptians. Therefore, the paps of your youth are thus.”
22 Therefore, O Oholibah, thus says the Lord GOD: “Behold, I will raise up your lovers against you, from whom your heart has departed. And I will bring them against you from every direction—
23 “the Babylonians, and all the Chaldeans, Pekod, Shoa, and Koa, and all the Assyrians with them. They were all pleasant young men, captains and princes. All of them were valiant and renowned, riding upon horses.
24 “Even they shall come against you with chariots, wagons, and wheels, and with a multitude of people, who shall set against you buckler and shield and helmet, all around. And I will leave the punishment to them, and they shall judge you according to their judgments.
25 “And I will lay My indignation upon you, and they shall deal cruelly with you. They shall cut off your nose and your ears. And your remnant shall fall by the sword. They shall carry away your sons and your daughters. And the rest of you shall be devoured by the fire.
26 “They shall also strip you out of your clothes and take away your fair jewels.
27 “Thus I will make your wickedness cease from you, and your fornication, out of the land of Egypt, so that you shall not lift up your eyes to them or remember Egypt anymore.”
28 For thus says the Lord GOD: “Behold, I will deliver you into the hand of those whom you hate, into the hands of those from whom your heart has departed.
29 “And they shall handle you hatefully, and shall take away all your property, and shall leave you naked and bare. And the shame of your fornications shall be uncovered, both your wickedness and your whoredom.
30 “I will do these things to you because you have gone whoring after the heathen, because you have been defiled with their idols.
31 “You have walked in the way of your sister. Therefore, I will put her cup into your hand.”
32 Thus says the Lord GOD: “You shall drink of your sister’s cup, deep and large. You shall be laughed to scorn and had in derision, because it contains much.
33 “You shall be filled with drunkenness and sorrow, with the cup of destruction and desolation, with the cup of your sister, Samaria.
34 “You shall drink it and wring it out, and you shall break its shards and tear your own breasts, for I have spoken it,” says the Lord GOD.
35 Therefore, thus says the Lord GOD: “Because you have forgotten Me, and cast Me behind your back, therefore you shall also bear your wickedness and your whoredom.”
36 Moreover, the LORD said to me: “Son of man, will you judge Oholah and Oholibah? And will you declare their abominations to them?
37 “For they have played the whores, and blood is on their hands. And they have committed adultery with their idols and have also caused their sons, whom they bore to Me, to pass through the fire to be its food.
38 “Moreover, they have done this to Me: They have defiled My Sanctuary and have profaned My Sabbaths on the same day.
39 “For after they had slain their children to their idols, they came into My Sanctuary on the same day to defile it. And lo, thus have they done in the midst of My House.
40 “Furthermore, they sent for men to come from afar, to whom a messenger was sent. And lo, they came. And you washed yourself and painted your eyes and adorned yourself with ornaments for them,
41 “and sat upon a costly bed (with a table prepared before it), upon which you have set My incense and My oil.
42 “And a voice of a carefree multitude was with her. And men of Saba (from the wilderness) were brought with the men, to make the company great, who put bracelets upon their hands and beautiful crowns upon their heads.
43 “Then I said to her who was old in adulteries, ‘Now she and her fornications shall come to an end.’
44 “And they went in to her. As they go to a common harlot, so went they to Oholah and Oholibah, the wicked women.
45 “And the righteous men shall judge them the same as harlots and the same as murderers. For they are harlots, and blood is on their hands.”
46 Therefore, thus says the Lord GOD: “I will bring a multitude upon them and will give them to the tumult and to the spoil.
47 “And the multitude shall stone them with stones and cut them with their swords. They shall slay their sons and their daughters and burn up their houses with fire.
48 “Thus I will cause wickedness to cease from the land, so that all women may be taught not to practice your wickedness.
49 “And they shall lay your wickedness upon you. And you shall bear the sins of your idols. And you shall know that I am the Lord GOD.”
1 Peter, an Apostle of Jesus Christ, To the strangers who dwell here and there throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia;
2 Elect, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, for sanctification of the Spirit through obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace and peace be multiplied to you.
3 Blessed be God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Who, according to His abundant mercy, has begotten us again to a living hope by the resurrection from the dead of Jesus Christ,
4 to an immortal and undefiled inheritance which does not wither, reserved in Heaven for us
5 who are kept for salvation through faith by the power of God (which is prepared to be revealed in the last time
6 and in which you rejoice. Though now for a season, if need be, you are in heaviness through various trials
7 so that the trial of your faith—being much more precious than gold, which perishes even though it is tried with fire—might be found to your praise, honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ,
8 Whom you have not seen and yet love; in Whom now, though you do not see Him, you still believe and rejoice with unspeakable and glorious joy,
9 receiving the purpose of your faith: the salvation of your souls).
10 Of such salvation the Prophets have inquired and searched, prophesying of the grace that would come to you,
11 searching when or at what time the Spirit of Christ (Who testified before) was in them, declaring the sufferings that would come to Christ and the glory that would follow.
12 To them it was revealed—not to themselves, but to us— that they should minister the things which are shown to you by those who have preached the Gospel by the Holy Ghost, sent down from Heaven. These things the angels desire to behold.
13 Therefore, gird up the loins of your mind. Be sober and trust completely in that grace which is brought to you by the revelation of Jesus Christ.
14 As obedient children, do not conform yourselves to the former lusts of your ignorance.
15 But as He Who has called you is holy, so you be holy, in all manner of conversation.
16 Because it is written, “Be holy. For I am holy.”
17 And if you call him ‘Father’ (Who judges according to the work of each, without respect of persons), pass the time of your dwelling here in fear,
18 knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things - like silver and gold from your ineffective lifestyle received by the traditions of the Fathers -
19 but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb undefiled and without spot.
20 He was ordained before the foundation of the world, but was revealed in the last times for your sakes,
21 You, through Him, believe in God Who raised Him from the dead and gave Him Glory, so that your faith and hope might be in God.
22 Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth (through the Spirit) toward brotherly love without hypocrisy, love one another fervently, with a pure heart;
23 being born anew—not of mortal seed, but of immortal—by the Word of God, Who lives and endures forever.
24 For “all flesh is as grass. And all the glory of man is as the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls away.
25 “But the Word of the Lord endures forever.” And this is the Word which is preached among you.
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