2 Kings 2:23

You fathers, don’t provoke your children to wrath, but nurture them in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

From infancy, you have known the holy Scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus.

For I have known him, to the end that he may command his children and his household after him, that they may keep the way of Yahweh, to do righteousness and justice; to the end that Yahweh may bring on Abraham that which he has spoken of him.”

Then Pashhur struck Jeremiah the prophet and put him in the stocks that were in the upper gate of Benjamin, which was in Yahweh’s house.

and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up.

Hagar bore a son for Abram. Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael.

Only be careful, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes saw, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life; but make them known to your children and your children’s children—

They have gaped on me with their mouth. They have struck me on the cheek reproachfully. They gather themselves together against me.

One who spares the rod hates his son, but one who loves him is careful to discipline him.

Joseph’s master took him, and put him into the prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were bound, and he was there in custody.

Therefore I have also given him to Yahweh. As long as he lives he is given to Yahweh.” He worshiped Yahweh there.

but they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and scoffed at his prophets, until Yahweh’s wrath arose against his people, until there was no remedy.

Therefore his calamity will come suddenly. He will be broken suddenly, and that without remedy.

Wounding blows cleanse away evil, and beatings purge the innermost parts.

Therefore as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as the dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust, because they have rejected the law of Yahweh of Armies, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

Let Samaria throw out his calf idol! My anger burns against them! How long will it be until they are capable of purity?

By their fruits you will know them. Do you gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles?

Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like the feast that is in Judah, and he went up to the altar. He did so in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves that he had made, and he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places that he had made.

Moreover the altar that was at Bethel, and the high place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, had made, even that altar and the high place he broke down; and he burned the high place and beat it to dust, and burned the Asherah.

Whoever despises instruction will pay for it, but he who respects a command will be rewarded.

Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come, and the years draw near, when you will say, “I have no pleasure in them;”

who tell the seers, “Don’t see!” and the prophets, “Don’t prophesy to us right things. Tell us pleasant things. Prophesy deceits.

“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.

“Haven’t you brought this on yourself, in that you have forsaken Yahweh your God, when he led you by the way?

For as often as I speak, I cry out; I cry, “Violence and destruction!” because Yahweh’s word has been made a reproach to me, and a derision, all day.

As for Ephraim, their glory will fly away like a bird. There will be no birth, no one with child, and no conception.

“All their wickedness is in Gilgal; for there I hated them. Because of the wickedness of their deeds I will drive them out of my house! I will love them no more. All their princes are rebels.

If Gilead is wicked, surely they are worthless. In Gilgal they sacrifice bulls. Indeed, their altars are like heaps in the furrows of the field.

“But you gave the Nazirites wine to drink, and commanded the prophets, saying, ‘Don’t prophesy!’

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

Yes, they made their hearts as hard as flint, lest they might hear the law, and the words which Yahweh of Armies had sent by his Spirit by the former prophets. Therefore great wrath came from Yahweh of Armies.

But I, brothers, if I still preach circumcision, why am I still persecuted? Then the stumbling block of the cross has been removed.

Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, bore him no children. She had a servant, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar.

They have dealt corruptly with him. They are not his children, because of their defect. They are a perverse and crooked generation.

He set the one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan.

He got rid of the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places in the cities of Judah, and in the places around Jerusalem; those also who burned incense to Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the army of the sky.

So the couriers passed from city to city through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh, even to Zebulun, but people ridiculed them and mocked them.

I am like one who is a joke to his neighbor, I, who called on God, and he answered. The just, the blameless man is a joke.

“But now those who are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I considered unworthy to put with my sheep dogs.

They close up their callous hearts. With their mouth they speak proudly.

For I am ready to fall. My pain is continually before me.

They pour out arrogant words. All the evildoers boast.

Discipline your son, for there is hope; don’t be a willing party to his death.

He who is often rebuked and stiffens his neck will be destroyed suddenly, with no remedy.

The rod of correction gives wisdom, but a child left to himself causes shame to his mother.

They have denied Yahweh, and said, “It is not he. Evil will won’t come on us. We won’t see sword or famine.

You have rejected me,” says Yahweh. “You have gone backward. Therefore I have stretched out my hand against you and destroyed you. I am weary of showing compassion.

that I may take the house of Israel in their own heart, because they are all estranged from me through their idols.” ’

“ ‘As for you, house of Israel, the Lord Yahweh says: “Go, everyone serve his idols, and hereafter also, if you will not listen to me; but you shall no more profane my holy name with your gifts and with your idols.

“Blow the cornet in Gibeah, and the trumpet in Ramah! Sound a battle cry at Beth Aven, behind you, Benjamin!

Don’t rejoice, Israel, to jubilation like the nations; for you were unfaithful to your God. You love the wages of a prostitute at every grain threshing floor.

Surely now they will say, “We have no king; for we don’t fear Yahweh; and the king, what can he do for us?”

I will stretch out my hand against Judah, and against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem. I will cut off the remnant of Baal from this place: the name of the idolatrous and pagan priests,

Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven. For that is how they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

“Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest.

Which of the prophets didn’t your fathers persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, of whom you have now become betrayers and murderers.

Having therefore these promises, beloved, let’s cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

Flee from youthful lusts; but pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

to execute judgment on all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their works of ungodliness which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”

But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked. You have grown fat. You have grown thick. You have become sleek. Then he abandoned God who made him, and rejected the Rock of his salvation.

“Don’t keep talking so exceedingly proudly. Don’t let arrogance come out of your mouth, for Yahweh is a God of knowledge. By him actions are weighed.

But after our fathers had provoked the God of heaven to wrath, he gave them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the Chaldean, who destroyed this house, and carried the people away into Babylon.

Even young children despise me. If I arise, they speak against me.

God, why have you rejected us forever? Why does your anger smolder against the sheep of your pasture?

“Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher; “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”

Though they say, ‘As Yahweh lives,’ surely they swear falsely.”

You are the daughter of your mother, who loathes her husband and her children; and you are the sister of your sisters, who loathed their husbands and their children. Your mother was a Hittite, and your father an Amorite.

The high places also of Aven, the sin of Israel, will be destroyed. The thorn and the thistle will come up on their altars. They will tell the mountains, “Cover us!” and the hills, “Fall on us!”

Those who swear by the sin of Samaria, and say, ‘As your god, Dan, lives;’ and, ‘As the way of Beersheba lives;’ they will fall, and never rise up again.”

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for his baptism, he said to them, “You offspring of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, mocking.

“If a man’s hair has fallen from his head, he is bald. He is clean.

Let the lying lips be mute, which speak against the righteous insolently, with pride and contempt.

But in my adversity, they rejoiced, and gathered themselves together. The attackers gathered themselves together against me, and I didn’t know it. They tore at me, and didn’t cease.

Even a child makes himself known by his doings, whether his work is pure, and whether it is right.

Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.

Folly is bound up in the heart of a child: the rod of discipline drives it far from him.

Therefore remove sorrow from your heart, and put away evil from your flesh; for youth and the dawn of life are vanity.

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.

The people will be oppressed, everyone by another, and everyone by his neighbor. The child will behave himself proudly against the old man, and the wicked against the honorable.

The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead the dough, to make cakes to the queen of the sky, and to pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.

Yahweh, you have persuaded me, and I was persuaded. You are stronger than I, and have prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all day. Everyone mocks me.

“Though you, Israel, play the prostitute, yet don’t let Judah offend; and don’t come to Gilgal, neither go up to Beth Aven, nor swear, ‘As Yahweh lives.’

The inhabitants of Samaria will be in terror for the calves of Beth Aven; for its people will mourn over it, Along with its priests who rejoiced over it, for its glory, because it has departed from it.

So Bethel will do to you because of your great wickedness. At daybreak the king of Israel will be destroyed.

“For in the day that I visit the transgressions of Israel on him, I will also visit the altars of Bethel; and the horns of the altar will be cut off, and fall to the ground.

“Go to Bethel, and sin; to Gilgal, and sin more. Bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three days,

but don’t seek Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and don’t pass to Beersheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nothing.

but don’t prophesy again any more at Bethel; for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a royal house!”

But as then, he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now.

Others were tried by mocking and scourging, yes, moreover by bonds and imprisonment.

As they continued on and talked, behold, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated them, and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.