Ezekiel 16:44

Those who regard lying vanities forsake their own mercy.

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.

Thus God has taken away your father’s livestock, and given them to me.

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.

The offspring of Israel separated themselves from all foreigners and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers.

who say, “Let him make haste, let him hasten his work, that we may see it; let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come, that we may know it!”

who say, ‘The time is not near to build houses. This is the cauldron, and we are the meat.’

Yet you have not walked in their ways, nor done their abominations; but soon you were more corrupt than they in all your ways.

You offspring of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

“Because Manasseh king of Judah has done these abominations, and has done wickedly above all that the Amorites did, who were before him, and has also made Judah to sin with his idols;

If a ruler listens to lies, all of his officials are wicked.

Then I saw all the labor and achievement that is the envy of a man’s neighbor. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.

Your first father sinned, and your teachers have transgressed against me.

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?

“Son of man, behold, they of the house of Israel say, ‘The vision that he sees is for many days to come, and he prophesies of times that are far off.’

Those who put far away the evil day, and cause the seat of violence to come near;

Won’t all these take up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against him, and say, ‘Woe to him who increases that which is not his, and who enriches himself by extortion! How long?’

Therefore by their fruits you will know them.

In the fourth generation they will come here again, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet full.”

For how would people know that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Isn’t it that you go with us, so that we are separated, I and your people, from all the people who are on the surface of the earth?”

and if you shall reject my statutes, and if your soul abhors my ordinances, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant,

He took up his parable, and said, “From Aram has Balak brought me, the king of Moab from the mountains of the East. Come, curse Jacob for me. Come, defy Israel.

You will grope at noonday, as the blind gropes in darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways. You will only be oppressed and robbed always, and there will be no one to save you.

As the proverb of the ancients says, ‘Out of the wicked comes wickedness;’ but my hand will not be on you.

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.

When he came to the hill, he took them from their hand, and stored them in the house. Then he let the men go, and they departed.

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.

Then I said, “Lord, how long?” He answered, “Until cities are waste without inhabitant, houses without man, the land becomes utterly waste,

The earth will be utterly emptied and utterly laid waste; for Yahweh has spoken this word.

For the fool will speak folly, and his heart will work iniquity, to practice profanity, and to utter error against Yahweh, to make empty the soul of the hungry, and to cause the drink of the thirsty to fail.

The wise men are disappointed. They are dismayed and trapped. Behold, they have rejected Yahweh’s word. What kind of wisdom is in them?

I will weep and wail for the mountains, and lament for the pastures of the wilderness, because they are burned up, so that no one passes through; Men can’t hear the voice of the livestock. Both the birds of the sky and the animals have fled. They are gone.

“ ‘Because, even because they have seduced my people, saying, “Peace;” and there is no peace. When one builds up a wall, behold, they plaster it with whitewash.

Cause it to return into its sheath. In the place where you were created, in the land of your birth, I will judge you.

I will yet bring to you, inhabitant of Mareshah. He who is the glory of Israel will come to Adullam.

I cut off the three shepherds in one month; for my soul was weary of them, and their soul also loathed me.

For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, sexual sins, thefts, false testimony, and blasphemies.

Jacob heard Laban’s sons’ words, saying, “Jacob has taken away all that was our father’s. He has obtained all this wealth from that which was our father’s.”

Moses said, “It isn’t appropriate to do so; for we shall sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians to Yahweh our God. Behold, if we sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before their eyes, won’t they stone us?

When all the kings of the Amorites, who were beyond the Jordan westward, and all the kings of the Canaanites, who were by the sea, heard how Yahweh had dried up the waters of the Jordan from before the children of Israel until we had crossed over, their heart melted, and there was no more spirit in them, because of the children of Israel.

Joshua said to them, “If you are a numerous people, go up to the forest, and clear land for yourself there in the land of the Perizzites and of the Rephaim; since the hill country of Ephraim is too narrow for you.”

Don’t turn away to go after vain things which can’t profit or deliver, for they are vain.

Behold, a man of God came out of Judah by Yahweh’s word to Bethel; and Jeroboam was standing by the altar to burn incense.

When Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, Ahab rose up to go down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, to take possession of it.

and walked in the statutes of the nations whom Yahweh cast out from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they made.

and there they burned incense in all the high places, as the nations whom Yahweh carried away before them did; and they did wicked things to provoke Yahweh to anger;

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.

Yahweh rejected all the offspring of Israel, afflicted them, and delivered them into the hands of raiders, until he had cast them out of his sight.

with whom Yahweh had made a covenant, and commanded them, saying, “You shall not fear other gods, nor bow yourselves to them, nor serve them, nor sacrifice to them;

He made his son to pass through the fire, practiced sorcery, used enchantments, and dealt with those who had familiar spirits, and with wizards. He did much evil in Yahweh’s sight, to provoke him to anger.

But they didn’t listen, and Manasseh seduced them to do that which is evil more than the nations did whom Yahweh destroyed before the children of Israel.

In every city of Judah he made high places to burn incense to other gods, and provoked Yahweh, the God of his fathers, to anger.

He did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, after the abominations of the nations whom Yahweh cast out before the children of Israel.

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.

The children of Israel who had returned out of the captivity, and all who had separated themselves to them from the filthiness of the nations of the land, to seek Yahweh, the God of Israel, ate,

Now when these things were done, the princes came near to me, saying, “The people of Israel, the priests, and the Levites, have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands, following their abominations, even those of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites.

Now therefore make confession to Yahweh, the God of your fathers, and do his pleasure; and separate yourselves from the peoples of the land, and from the foreign women.”

Among the sons of the priests there were found who had married foreign women: of the sons of Jeshua, the son of Jozadak, and his brothers, Maaseiah, and Eliezer, and Jarib, and Gedaliah.

“Nevertheless they were disobedient, and rebelled against you, cast your law behind their back, killed your prophets that testified against them to turn them again to you, and they committed awful blasphemies.

Also our kings, our princes, our priests, and our fathers have not kept your law, nor listened to your commandments and your testimonies with which you testified against them.

and I came to Jerusalem, and understood the evil that Eliashib had done for Tobiah, in preparing him a room in the courts of God’s house.

Haman recounted to them the glory of his riches, the multitude of his children, all the things in which the king had promoted him, and how he had advanced him above the princes and servants of the king.

if the men of my tent have not said, ‘Who can find one who has not been filled with his meat?’

that the godless man may not reign, that there be no one to ensnare the people.

from men by your hand, Yahweh, from men of the world, whose portion is in this life. You fill the belly of your cherished ones. Your sons have plenty, and they store up wealth for their children.

I am Yahweh, your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.

Therefore Sheol has enlarged its desire, and opened its mouth without measure; and their glory, their multitude, their pomp, and he who rejoices among them, descend into it.

Yahweh says, “Don’t let the wise man glory in his wisdom. Don’t let the mighty man glory in his might. Don’t let the rich man glory in his riches.

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

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

Behold, they ask me, “Where is Yahweh’s word? Let it be fulfilled now.”

Yahweh of Armies says, “Don’t listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. They teach you vanity. They speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of Yahweh.

But we will certainly perform every word that has gone out of our mouth, to burn incense to the queen of the sky, and to pour out drink offerings to her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem; for then had we plenty of food, and were well, and saw no evil.

Because you have burned incense, and because you have sinned against Yahweh, and have not obeyed Yahweh’s voice, nor walked in his law, nor in his statutes, nor in his testimonies; therefore this evil has happened to you, as it is today.”

“You, son of man, the Lord Yahweh says to the land of Israel, ‘An end! The end has come on the four corners of the land.

“Son of man, what is this proverb that you have in the land of Israel, saying, ‘The days are prolonged, and every vision fails?’

and say, ‘The Lord Yahweh says to Jerusalem: “Your origin and your birth is of the land of the Canaanite. An Amorite was your father, and your mother was a Hittite.

You have moreover multiplied your prostitution to the land of merchants, to Chaldea; and yet you weren’t satisfied with this.

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.

It will be to them as a false divination in their sight, who have sworn oaths to them; but he brings iniquity to memory, that they may be taken.

We haven’t listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land.

But they, like Adam, have broken the covenant. They were unfaithful to me, there.

Ephraim, he mixes himself among the nations. Ephraim is a pancake not turned over.

“Listen, and testify against the house of Jacob,” says the Lord Yahweh, the God of Armies.

“Woe to you who desire the day of Yahweh! Why do you long for the day of Yahweh? It is darkness, and not light.

In that day they will take up a parable against you, and lament with a doleful lamentation, saying, ‘We are utterly ruined! My people’s possession is divided up. Indeed he takes it from me and assigns our fields to traitors!’ ”

Again, the devil took him to an exceedingly high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world, and their glory.

But if that evil servant should say in his heart, ‘My lord is delaying his coming,’

But if that servant says in his heart, ‘My lord delays his coming,’ and begins to beat the menservants and the maidservants, and to eat and drink, and to be drunken,

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, like a hen gathers her own brood under her wings, and you refused!

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.

To him therefore who knows to do good, and doesn’t do it, to him it is sin.

forsaking the right way, they went astray, having followed the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the wages of wrongdoing;

But I have this against you, that you tolerate your woman, Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. She teaches and seduces my servants to commit sexual immorality, and to eat things sacrificed to idols.