Ezekiel 20:1

For God didn’t give us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-control.

He said, “Go, and tell this people, ‘You hear indeed, but don’t understand. You see indeed, but don’t perceive.’

He answered them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

‘These people draw near to me with their mouth, and honor me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.

In the sixth year, in the sixth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I sat in my house, and the elders of Judah sat before me, the Lord Yahweh’s hand fell on me there.

They profess that they know God, but by their deeds they deny him, being abominable, disobedient, and unfit for any good work.

You have planted them. Yes, they have taken root. They grow. Yes, they produce fruit. You are near in their mouth, and far from their heart.

In the twelfth year of our captivity, in the tenth month, in the fifth day of the month, one who had escaped out of Jerusalem came to me, saying, “The city has been defeated!”

They come to you as the people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear your words, but don’t do them; for with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goes after their gain.

But one stood up in the council, a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law, honored by all the people, and commanded to put the apostles out for a little while.

The Lord said to him, “Arise, and go to the street which is called Straight, and inquire in the house of Judah for one named Saul, a man of Tarsus. For behold, he is praying,

For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? For if I were still pleasing men, I wouldn’t be a servant of Christ.

Yes, he loves the people. All his saints are in your hand. They sat down at your feet. Each receives your words.

for when Jezebel cut off Yahweh’s prophets, Obadiah took one hundred prophets, and hid them by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water.)

But Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting with him. Then the king sent a man from before him; but before the messenger came to him, he said to the elders, “Do you see how this son of a murderer has sent to take away my head? Behold, when the messenger comes, shut the door, and hold the door shut against him. Isn’t the sound of his master’s feet behind him?”

Yet for all this her treacherous sister, Judah, has not returned to me with her whole heart, but only in pretense,” says Yahweh.

Afterward,” says Yahweh, “I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah, his servants, and the people, even those who are left in this city from the pestilence, from the sword, and from the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those who seek their life. He will strike them with the edge of the sword. He will not spare them, have pity, or have mercy.” ’

So Zedekiah the king swore secretly to Jeremiah, saying, “As Yahweh lives, who made us this soul, I will not put you to death, neither will I give you into the hand of these men who seek your life.”

The Pharisees went out, and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how they might destroy him.

They, when they heard it, glorified God. They said to him, “You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed, and they are all zealous for the law.

But Paul said, “I am a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no insignificant city. I beg you, allow me to speak to the people.”

having known me from the first, if they are willing to testify, that after the strictest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee.

I marvel that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ to a different “good news”,

holding a form of godliness, but having denied its power. Turn away from these, also.

Then he said, “I have sinned; yet please honor me now before the elders of my people, and before Israel, and come back with me, that I may worship Yahweh your God.”

She said to Elijah, “What have I to do with you, you man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to memory, and to kill my son!”

Now therefore send, and gather to me all Israel to Mount Carmel, and four hundred fifty of the prophets of Baal, and four hundred of the prophets of the Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table.”

Then the king of Israel gathered the prophets together, about four hundred men, and said to them, “Should I go against Ramoth Gilead to battle, or should I refrain?” They said, “Go up; for the Lord will deliver it into the hand of the king.”

Elisha came again to Gilgal. There was a famine in the land; and the sons of the prophets were sitting before him; and he said to his servant, “Get the large pot, and boil stew for the sons of the prophets.”

Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me.

Blessed is the man who hears me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at my door posts.

Don’t you add to his words, lest he reprove you, and you be found a liar.

Yahweh’s word came to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar; and Yahweh’s hand was there on him.

Then some of the elders of Israel came to me, and sat before me.

Yahweh’s hand was on me, and he brought me out in Yahweh’s Spirit, and set me down in the middle of the valley; and it was full of bones.

And in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrine rules made by men.’ ”

He warned them, saying, “Take heed: beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod.”

Therefore Mary took a pound of ointment of pure nard, very precious, and anointed Jesus’s feet and wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the ointment.

But some of those who were of the synagogue called “The Libertines”, and of the Cyrenians, of the Alexandrians, and of those of Cilicia and Asia arose, disputing with Stephen.

Peter opened his mouth and said, “Truly I perceive that God doesn’t show favoritism;

For there is no partiality with God.

My brothers, don’t hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ of glory with partiality.

The sacrifice made by the wicked is an abomination to Yahweh, but the prayer of the upright is his delight.

“ ‘As the bad figs, which can’t be eaten, they are so bad,’ surely Yahweh says, ‘So I will give up Zedekiah the king of Judah, and his princes, and the remnant of Jerusalem, who remain in this land, and those who dwell in the land of Egypt.

Zedekiah the king sent Jehucal the son of Shelemiah, and Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah, the priest, to the prophet Jeremiah, saying, “Pray now to Yahweh our God for us.”

In the fifth of the month, which was the fifth year of king Jehoiachin’s captivity,

So the Spirit lifted me up, and took me away; and I went in bitterness, in the heat of my spirit; and Yahweh’s hand was strong on me.

Yahweh’s hand was there on me; and he said to me, “Arise, go out into the plain, and I will talk with you there.”

Again, in the ninth year, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, Yahweh’s word came to me, saying,

In the eleventh year, in the first of the month, Yahweh’s word came to me, saying,

In the tenth year, in the tenth month, on the twelfth day of the month, Yahweh’s word came to me, saying,

It came to pass in the twenty-seventh year, in the first month, in the first day of the month, Yahweh’s word came to me, saying,

In the eleventh year, in the first month, in the seventh day of the month, Yahweh’s word came to me, saying,

In the eleventh year, in the third month, in the first day of the month, Yahweh’s word came to me, saying,

In the twelfth year, in the twelfth month, in the first day of the month, “Yahweh’s word came to me, saying,

Also in the twelfth year, in the fifteenth day of the month, Yahweh’s word came to me, saying,

In the twenty-fifth year of our captivity, in the beginning of the year, in the tenth day of the month, in the fourteenth year after that the city was struck, in the same day, Yahweh’s hand was on me, and he brought me there.

for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and kept him safe. When he heard him, he did many things, and he heard him gladly.

(all of which perish with use), according to the precepts and doctrines of men?

Elisha said to the king of Israel, “What have I to do with you? Go to the prophets of your father, and to the prophets of your mother.” The king of Israel said to him, “No, for Yahweh has called these three kings together to deliver them into the hand of Moab.”

The Lord said, “Because this people draws near with their mouth and honors me with their lips, but they have removed their heart far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment of men which has been taught;

Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways. As a nation that did righteousness, and didn’t forsake the ordinance of their God, they ask of me righteous judgments. They delight to draw near to God.

then Zedekiah the king sent, and had him brought out. The king asked him secretly in his house, “Is there any word from Yahweh?” Jeremiah said, “There is.” He also said, “You will be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon.”

Then he said to me, “Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in his rooms of imagery? For they say, ‘Yahweh doesn’t see us. Yahweh has forsaken the land.’ ”

They sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are honest, and teach the way of God in truth, no matter whom you teach, for you aren’t partial to anyone.

After three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the middle of the teachers, both listening to them, and asking them questions.

People went out to see what had happened. They came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had gone out, sitting at Jesus’ feet, clothed and in his right mind; and they were afraid.

She had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus’ feet, and heard his word.

“I am indeed a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, instructed according to the strict tradition of the law of our fathers, being zealous for God, even as you all are today.