Ezekiel 16:30

For your obedience has become known to all. I rejoice therefore over you. But I desire to have you wise in that which is good, but innocent in that which is evil.

Brothers, don’t be children in thoughts, yet in malice be babies, but in thoughts be mature.

I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your sky like iron, and your soil like bronze.

‘Hear this now, foolish people without understanding, who have eyes, and don’t see, who have ears, and don’t hear:

Because of the ground which is cracked, because no rain has been in the land, the plowmen are disappointed. They cover their heads.

Your sky that is over your head will be bronze, and the earth that is under you will be iron.

She is loud and defiant. Her feet don’t stay in her house.

I will lay it a wasteland. It won’t be pruned or hoed, but it will grow briers and thorns. I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain on it.”

They don’t say in their heart, ‘Let’s now fear Yahweh our God, who gives rain, both the former and the latter, in its season, who preserves to us the appointed weeks of the harvest.’

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.

There is no one who understands. There is no one who seeks after God.

Now the men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinners against Yahweh.

For they are a nation void of counsel. There is no understanding in them.

Yes, the stork in the sky knows her appointed times. The turtledove, the swallow, and the crane observe the time of their coming; but my people don’t know Yahweh’s law.

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you, that you may be no priest to me. Because you have forgotten your God’s law, I will also forget your children.

Their deeds won’t allow them to turn to their God; for the spirit of prostitution is within them, and they don’t know Yahweh.

“I also have withheld the rain from you, when there were yet three months to the harvest; and I caused it to rain on one city, and caused it not to rain on another city. One place was rained on, and the piece where it didn’t rain withered.

Woe to those who devise iniquity and work evil on their beds! When the morning is light, they practice it, because it is in the power of their hand.

I called for a drought on the land, on the mountains, on the grain, on the new wine, on the oil, on that which the ground produces, on men, on livestock, and on all the labor of the hands.”

They will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me.

Therefore don’t be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

They called to Lot, and said to him, “Where are the men who came in to you this night? Bring them out to us, that we may have sex with them.”

For the lips of an adulteress drip honey. Her mouth is smoother than oil,

Therefore my people go into captivity for lack of knowledge. Their honorable men are famished, and their multitudes are parched with thirst.

When its boughs are withered, they will be broken off. The women will come and set them on fire, for they are a people of no understanding. Therefore he who made them will not have compassion on them, and he who formed them will show them no favor.

Haven’t you known? Haven’t you heard? The everlasting God, Yahweh, the Creator of the ends of the earth, doesn’t faint. He isn’t weary. His understanding is unsearchable.

“Your own wickedness will correct you, and your backsliding will rebuke you. Know therefore and see that it is an evil and bitter thing, that you have forsaken Yahweh your God, and that my fear is not in you,” says the Lord, Yahweh of Armies.

Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed. They couldn’t blush. Therefore they will fall among those who fall. In the time of their visitation they will be cast down, says Yahweh.

Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may you also do good, who are accustomed to do evil.

For she didn’t know that I gave her the grain, the new wine, and the oil, and multiplied to her silver and gold, which they used for Baal.

“Indeed they don’t know to do right,” says Yahweh, “Who hoard plunder and loot in their palaces.”

Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,

Even as they refused to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not fitting;

They don’t know, neither do they consider: for he has shut their eyes, that they can’t see; and their hearts, that they can’t understand.

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.

Then I said, “Surely these are poor. They are foolish; for they don’t know the Yahweh’s way, nor the law of their God.

“They bend their tongue, as their bow, for falsehood. They have grown strong in the land, but not for truth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they don’t know me,” says Yahweh.

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

But if your eye is evil, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

Therefore, holy brothers, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession: Jesus,

Yahweh said, “Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous,

“Will the wild ox be content to serve you? Or will he stay by your feeding trough?

Everyone lies to his neighbor. They speak with flattering lips, and with a double heart.

Don’t be like the horse, or like the mule, which have no understanding, who are controlled by bit and bridle, or else they will not come near to you.

The words of his mouth are iniquity and deceit. He has ceased to be wise and to do good.

Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge, who eat up my people as they eat bread, and don’t call on God?

Consider, you senseless among the people; you fools, when will you be wise?

Your testimonies are righteous forever. Give me understanding, that I may live.

She gives no thought to the way of life. Her ways are crooked, and she doesn’t know it.

Go to the ant, you sluggard. Consider her ways, and be wise;

arrogant eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood,

The foolish woman is loud, undisciplined, and knows nothing.

Behold, I have only found this: that God made man upright; but they search for many schemes.”

The ox knows his owner, and the donkey his master’s crib; but Israel doesn’t know. My people don’t consider.”

Hear Yahweh’s word, you rulers of Sodom! Listen to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah!

The look of their faces testify against them. They parade their sin like Sodom. They don’t hide it. Woe to their soul! For they have brought disaster upon themselves.

The harp, lyre, tambourine, and flute, with wine, are at their feasts; but they don’t respect the work of Yahweh, neither have they considered the operation of his hands.

Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to Yahweh, and he will have mercy on him, to our God, for he will freely pardon.

Yes, the dogs are greedy. They can never have enough. They are shepherds who can’t understand. They have all turned to their own way, each one to his gain, from every quarter.

“For my people are foolish. They don’t know me. They are foolish children, and they have no understanding. They are skillful in doing evil, but they don’t know how to do good.”

“Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withheld good from you.

Every man has become brutish and without knowledge. Every goldsmith is disappointed by his engraved image; for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them.

“ ‘ “Behold, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: pride, fullness of bread, and prosperous ease was in her and in her daughters. She also didn’t strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.

“Be glad then, you children of Zion, and rejoice in Yahweh, your God; for he gives you the early rain in just measure, and he causes the rain to come down for you, the early rain and the latter rain, as before.

When anyone hears the word of the Kingdom, and doesn’t understand it, the evil one comes, and snatches away that which has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown by the roadside.

For this is the will of God, that by well-doing you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish men:

For this they willfully forget that there were heavens from of old, and an earth formed out of water and amid water by the word of God,

Woe to them! For they went in the way of Cain, and ran riotously in the error of Balaam for hire, and perished in Korah’s rebellion.

You are to make a distinction between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean.

The priest shall examine the plague in the skin of the body. If the hair in the plague has turned white, and the appearance of the plague is deeper than the body’s skin, it is the plague of leprosy; so the priest shall examine him and pronounce him unclean.

Is this the way you repay Yahweh, foolish and unwise people? Isn’t he your father who has bought you? He has made you and established you.

Then Samuel said, “Bring Agag the king of the Amalekites here to me!” Agag came to him cheerfully. Agag said, “Surely the bitterness of death is past.”

But Amnon had a friend, whose name was Jonadab, the son of Shimeah, David’s brother; and Jonadab was a very subtle man.

They sent to me four times like this; and I answered them the same way.

With persuasive words, she led him astray. With the flattering of her lips, she seduced him.

Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout, is a beautiful woman who lacks discretion.

Whoever loves correction loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

You see many things, but don’t observe. His ears are open, but he doesn’t listen.

Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush. Therefore they will fall among those who fall. When I visit them, they will be cast down,” says Yahweh.

They shall teach my people the difference between the holy and the common, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean.

Hear Yahweh’s word, you children of Israel; for Yahweh has a charge against the inhabitants of the land: “Indeed there is no truth, nor goodness, nor knowledge of God in the land.

For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth; for he is the messenger of Yahweh of Armies.

I will give to you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven; and whatever you release on earth will have been released in heaven.”

“His lord commended the dishonest manager because he had done wisely, for the children of this world are, in their own generation, wiser than the children of the light.

If you forgive anyone’s sins, they have been forgiven them. If you retain anyone’s sins, they have been retained.”