1 Samuel 12:21

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

But I ask, didn’t Israel know? First Moses says, “I will provoke you to jealousy with that which is no nation. I will make you angry with a nation void of understanding.”

For he walked in all the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and in his sins with which he made Israel to sin, to provoke Yahweh, the God of Israel, to anger with their vanities.

For with you is the spring of life. In your light we will see light.

but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst again; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”

I hate those who regard lying vanities, but I trust in Yahweh.

Therefore the showers have been withheld and there has been no latter rain; yet you have had a prostitute’s forehead and you refused to be ashamed.

Does the rain have a father? Or who fathers the drops of dew?

Yahweh, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you will be disappointed. Those who depart from me will be written in the earth, because they have forsaken Yahweh, the spring of living waters.

“Ah Lord Yahweh! Behold, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for you.

He brought me back to the door of the house; and behold, waters flowed out from under the threshold of the house eastward, for the front of the house faced toward the east. The waters came down from underneath, from the right side of the house, on the south of the altar.

Yet the number of the children of Israel will be as the sand of the sea, which can’t be measured or counted; and it will come to pass that, in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’

“What value does the engraved image have, that its maker has engraved it; the molten image, even the teacher of lies, that he who fashions its form trusts in it, to make mute idols?

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. You will be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth.”

Now concerning things sacrificed to idols: We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.

But refuse foolish and ignorant questionings, knowing that they generate strife.

Hear, Israel: Yahweh is our God. Yahweh is one.

They moved him to jealousy with strange gods. They provoked him to anger with abominations.

Yet you have forsaken me and served other gods. Therefore I will save you no more.

and my heart has been secretly enticed, and my hand threw a kiss from my mouth,

For they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their engraved images.

For you are great, and do wondrous things. You are God alone.

He who troubles his own house shall inherit the wind. The foolish shall be servant to the wise of heart.

What does man gain from all his labor in which he labors under the sun?

Ah sinful nation, a people loaded with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken Yahweh. They have despised the Holy One of Israel. They are estranged and backward.

Therefore with joy you will draw water out of the wells of salvation.

He will give the rain for your seed, with which you will sow the ground; and bread of the increase of the ground will be rich and plentiful. In that day, your livestock will feed in large pastures.

Behold, you are nothing, and your work is nothing. He who chooses you is an abomination.

Why do you spend money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which doesn’t satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in richness.

“But where are your gods that you have made for yourselves? Let them arise, if they can save you in the time of your trouble; for you have as many gods as you have towns, O Judah.

“How can I pardon you? Your children have forsaken me, and sworn by what are no gods. When I had fed them to the full, they committed adultery, and assembled themselves in troops at the prostitutes’ houses.

They are vanity, a work of delusion. In the time of their visitation they will perish.

Yahweh, my strength, and my stronghold, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the nations will come to you from the ends of the earth, and will say, “Our fathers have inherited nothing but lies, vanity and things in which there is no profit.

Don’t be a terror to me. You are my refuge in the day of evil.

For my people have forgotten me. They have burned incense to false gods. They have been made to stumble in their ways, in the ancient paths, to walk in byways, in a way not built up,

I will sow her to me in the earth; and I will have mercy on her who had not obtained mercy; and I will tell those who were not my people, ‘You are my people;’ and they will say, ‘My God!’ ”

As they were multiplied, so they sinned against me. I will change their glory into shame.

My people, what have I done to you? How have I burdened you? Answer me!

those who have turned back from following Yahweh, and those who haven’t sought Yahweh nor inquired after him.

Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

But Peter raised him up, saying, “Stand up! I myself am also a man.”

“Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to the living God, who made the sky, the earth, the sea, and all that is in them;

You see and hear that not at Ephesus alone, but almost throughout all Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away many people, saying that they are no gods that are made with hands.

yet to us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we live through him.

What am I saying then? That a thing sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything?

but shun foolish questionings, genealogies, strife, and disputes about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain.

Beware, brothers, lest perhaps there might be in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief, in falling away from the living God;

Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it didn’t rain on the earth for three years and six months.

He said with a loud voice, “Fear the Lord, and give him glory; for the hour of his judgment has come. Worship him who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and the springs of waters!”

He showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb,

He causes the clouds to rise from the ends of the earth. He makes lightnings with the rain. He brings the wind out of his treasuries.

For you have been a stronghold to the poor, a stronghold to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shade from the heat, when the blast of the dreaded ones is like a storm against the wall.

Let all the nations be gathered together, and let the peoples be assembled. Who among them can declare this, and show us former things? Let them bring their witnesses, that they may be justified, or let them hear, and say, “That is true.”

Who has fashioned a god, or molds an image that is profitable for nothing?

Indeed, he says, “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel. I will also give you as a light to the nations, that you may be my salvation to the end of the earth.”

Behold, the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people from a land that is very far off: “Isn’t Yahweh in Zion? Isn’t her King in her?” “Why have they provoked me to anger with their engraved images, and with foreign idols?”

They deck it with silver and with gold. They fasten it with nails and with hammers, so that it can’t move.

They are like a palm tree, of turned work, and don’t speak. They must be carried, because they can’t move. Don’t be afraid of them; for they can’t do evil, neither is it in them to do good.”

They are vanity, a work of delusion. In the time of their visitation, they will perish.

Yahweh is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and he knows those who take refuge in him.

Because knowing God, they didn’t glorify him as God, and didn’t give thanks, but became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless heart was darkened.

Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?

He said to me, “I have become the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give freely to him who is thirsty from the spring of the water of life.

for all the sins of Baasha, and the sins of Elah his son, which they sinned, and with which they made Israel to sin, to provoke Yahweh, the God of Israel, to anger with their vanities.

You sons of men, how long shall my glory be turned into dishonor? Will you love vanity and seek after falsehood?

“Assemble yourselves and come. Draw near together, you who have escaped from the nations. Those have no knowledge who carry the wood of their engraved image, and pray to a god that can’t save.

They bear it on their shoulder. They carry it, and set it in its place, and it stands there. It cannot move from its place. Yes, one may cry to it, yet it can not answer. It cannot save him out of his trouble.

Are there any among the vanities of the nations that can cause rain? Or can the sky give showers? Aren’t you he, Yahweh our God? Therefore we will wait for you; for you have made all these things.

Therefore concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that no idol is anything in the world, and that there is no other God but one.

Remind them of these things, charging them in the sight of the Lord, that they don’t argue about words, to no profit, to the subverting of those who hear.

Be careful, lest your heart be deceived, and you turn away to serve other gods and worship them;

They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God. They have provoked me to anger with their vanities. I will move them to jealousy with those who are not a people. I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.

They rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified to them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom Yahweh had commanded them that they should not do like them.

This also is a grievous evil, that in all points as he came, so shall he go. And what profit does he have who labors for the wind?

Behold, all of their deeds are vanity and nothing. Their molten images are wind and confusion.

Yahweh says, “What unrighteousness have your fathers found in me, that they have gone far from me, and have walked after worthless vanity, and have become worthless?

The priests didn’t say, ‘Where is Yahweh?’ and those who handle the law didn’t know me. The rulers also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal and followed things that do not profit.

“For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the spring of living waters, and cut out cisterns for themselves: broken cisterns that can’t hold water.

But they are together brutish and foolish, instructed by idols! It is just wood.

Those who regard lying vanities forsake their own mercy.

But they worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’

But now, brothers, if I come to you speaking with other languages, what would I profit you, unless I speak to you either by way of revelation, or of knowledge, or of prophesying, or of teaching?