Isaiah 65:2

Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it is the wellspring of life.

Blessed is the man who doesn’t walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand on the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers;

Samuel spoke to all the house of Israel, saying, “If you are returning to Yahweh with all your heart, then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you, and direct your hearts to Yahweh, and serve him only; and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.”

The heart is deceitful above all things and it is exceedingly corrupt. Who can know it?

“Enter in by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter in by it.

throwing down imaginations and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,

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

So I let them go after the stubbornness of their hearts, that they might walk in their own counsels.

Hear, you peoples, all of you. Listen, O earth, and all that is therein: and let the Lord Yahweh be witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple.

But about Israel he says, “All day long I stretched out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.”

He will cover you with his feathers. Under his wings you will take refuge. His faithfulness is your shield and rampart.

“It shall be eighteen thousand reeds around: and the name of the city from that day shall be, ‘Yahweh is there.’

Her leaders judge for bribes, and her priests teach for a price, and her prophets of it tell fortunes for money: yet they lean on Yahweh, and say, “Isn’t Yahweh among us? No disaster will come on us.”

Give ear, you heavens, and I will speak. Let the earth hear the words of my mouth.

if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

If I cherished sin in my heart, the Lord wouldn’t have listened.

How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness, and grieved him in the desert!

a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are swift in running to mischief,

He who conceals his sins doesn’t prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy.

I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake; and I will not remember your sins.

I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, your transgressions, and, as a cloud, your sins. Return to me, for I have redeemed you.

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.

“A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If I am a father, then where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is the respect due me? Says Yahweh of Armies to you, priests, who despise my name. You say, ‘How have we despised your name?’

“You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit! As your fathers did, so you do.

Or don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God’s Kingdom? Don’t be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes, nor homosexuals,

Don’t grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners. Purify your hearts, you double-minded.

Yahweh was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him in his heart.

“You shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds those who have sight and perverts the words of the righteous.

May Yahweh repay your work, and a full reward be given to you from Yahweh, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.”

if my step has turned out of the way, if my heart walked after my eyes, if any defilement has stuck to my hands,

Though while he lived he blessed his soul— and men praise you when you do well for yourself—

But there is forgiveness with you, therefore you are feared.

For they don’t sleep unless they do evil. Their sleep is taken away, unless they make someone fall.

Hear, heavens, and listen, earth; for Yahweh has spoken: “I have nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against me.

For thus said the Lord Yahweh, the Holy One of Israel, “You will be saved in returning and rest. Your strength will be in quietness and in confidence.” You refused,

I will destine you to the sword, and you will all bow down to the slaughter; because when I called, you didn’t answer. When I spoke, you didn’t listen; but you did that which was evil in my eyes, and chose that in which I didn’t delight.”

I also will choose their delusions, and will bring their fears on them; because when I called, no one answered; when I spoke, they didn’t listen; but they did that which was evil in my eyes, and chose that in which I didn’t delight.”

They have grown fat. They shine; yes, they excel in deeds of wickedness. They don’t plead the cause, the cause of the fatherless, that they may prosper; and they don’t defend the rights of the needy.

Now, because you have done all these works,” says Yahweh, “and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you didn’t hear; and I called you, but you didn’t answer;

But they say, ‘It is in vain; for we will walk after our own plans, and we will each follow the stubbornness of his evil heart.’ ”

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.

But in the latter days, it will happen that the mountain of Yahweh’s temple will be established on the top of the mountains, and it will be exalted above the hills; and peoples will stream to it.

Their hands are on that which is evil to do it diligently. The ruler and judge ask for a bribe; and the powerful man dictates the evil desire of his soul. Thus they conspire together.

Don’t oppress the widow, nor the fatherless, the foreigner, nor the poor; and let none of you devise evil against his brother in your heart.’

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

Even so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner repenting.”

Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us,

Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

who before were disobedient, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, while the ship was being built. In it, few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water.

Yahweh smelled the pleasant aroma. Yahweh said in his heart, “I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake because the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth. I will never again strike every living thing, as I have done.

“ ‘But the soul who does anything with a high hand, whether he is native-born or a foreigner, blasphemes Yahweh. That soul shall be cut off from among his people.

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will soon utterly perish from off the land which you go over the Jordan to possess it. You will not prolong your days on it, but will utterly be destroyed.

You have been rebellious against Yahweh from the day that I knew you.

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Therefore choose life, that you may live, you and your descendants,

He said, “I will hide my face from them. I will see what their end will be; for they are a very perverse generation, children in whom is no faithfulness.

“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.

For you have been my help. I will rejoice in the shadow of your wings.

For, behold, those who are far from you shall perish. You have destroyed all those who are unfaithful to you.

Yet they tempted and rebelled against the Most High God, and didn’t keep his testimonies,

“Woe to the rebellious children”, says Yahweh, “who take counsel, but not from me; and who make an alliance, but not with my Spirit, that they may add sin to sin,

They are all grievous rebels, going around to slander. They are bronze and iron. All of them deal corruptly.

Yet they didn’t listen to me or incline their ear, but made their neck stiff. They did worse than their fathers.

Why then have the people of Jerusalem fallen back by a perpetual backsliding? They cling to deceit. They refuse to return.

Yet they didn’t obey, nor turn their ear, but everyone walked in the stubbornness of their evil heart. Therefore I brought on them all the words of this covenant, which I commanded them to do, but they didn’t do them.’ ”

A glorious throne, set on high from the beginning, is the place of our sanctuary.

Those of you that escape will remember me among the nations where they are carried captive, how I have been broken with their lewd heart, which has departed from me, and with their eyes, which play the prostitute after their idols. Then they will loathe themselves in their own sight for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations.

“ ‘ “But they rebelled against me, and would not listen to me. They didn’t all throw away the abominations of their eyes. They also didn’t forsake the idols of Egypt. Then I said I would pour out my wrath on them, to accomplish my anger against them in the middle of the land of Egypt.

“ ‘ “But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness. They didn’t walk in my statutes, and they rejected my ordinances, which if a man keeps, he shall live in them. They greatly profaned my Sabbaths. Then I said I would pour out my wrath on them in the wilderness, to consume them.

He said to me, “Son of man, this is the place of my throne, and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell among the children of Israel forever. The house of Israel will no more defile my holy name, neither they, nor their kings, by their prostitution, and by the dead bodies of their kings in their high places;

for this, my son, was dead, and is alive again. He was lost, and is found.’ Then they began to celebrate.

“Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, so that there may come times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord,

but declared first to them of Damascus, at Jerusalem, and throughout all the country of Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, doing works worthy of repentance.

Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor that which is evil. Cling to that which is good.

Yahweh saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of man’s heart was continually only evil.

It shall be to you for a fringe, that you may see it, and remember all Yahweh’s commandments, and do them; and that you don’t follow your own heart and your own eyes, after which you used to play the prostitute;

Remember, and don’t forget, how you provoked Yahweh your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day that you left the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against Yahweh.

and it happen, when he hears the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, “I shall have peace, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart,” to destroy the moist with the dry.

For I know your rebellion and your stiff neck. Behold, while I am yet alive with you today, you have been rebellious against Yahweh. How much more after my death?

He plots iniquity on his bed. He sets himself in a way that is not good. He doesn’t abhor evil.

Because I have called, and you have refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no one has paid attention;

A man of violence entices his neighbor, and leads him in a way that is not good.

Your princes are rebellious and companions of thieves. Everyone loves bribes and follows after rewards. They don’t defend the fatherless, neither does the cause of the widow come to them.

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.

But they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit. Therefore he turned and became their enemy, and he himself fought against them.

“For I know their works and their thoughts. The time comes that I will gather all nations and languages, and they will come, and will see my glory.

At that time they will call Jerusalem ‘Yahweh’s Throne;’ and all the nations will be gathered to it, to Yahweh’s name, to Jerusalem. They will no longer walk after the stubbornness of their evil heart.

Jerusalem, wash your heart from wickedness, that you may be saved. How long will your evil thoughts lodge within you?

“But this people has a revolting and a rebellious heart. They have revolted and gone.

But they didn’t listen or turn their ear, but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward.

From the days of your fathers you have turned away from my ordinances, and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says Yahweh of Armies. “But you say, ‘How shall we return?’

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

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets, and stones those who are sent to her! How often I would have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not!

“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!

Most certainly I tell you, we speak that which we know, and testify of that which we have seen, and you don’t receive our witness.

The wicked, in the pride of his face, has no room in his thoughts for God.

He will spread out his hands in the middle of it, like one who swims spreads out hands to swim, but his pride will be humbled together with the craft of his hands.

But I said, “I have labored in vain. I have spent my strength in vain for nothing; yet surely the justice due to me is with Yahweh, and my reward with my God.”

“Son of man, you dwell in the middle of the rebellious house, who have eyes to see, and don’t see, who have ears to hear, and don’t hear; for they are a rebellious house.

But according to your hardness and unrepentant heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath, revelation, and of the righteous judgment of God;