Jeremiah 2:5

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

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.

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

But I ask, didn’t Israel know? First Moses says, “I will provoke you to jealousy with that which is no nation. I will make you angry with a nation void of understanding.”

For he walked in all the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and in his sins with which he made Israel to sin, to provoke Yahweh, the God of Israel, to anger with their vanities.

You have neither part nor lot in this matter, for your heart isn’t right before God.

This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind,

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.

I hate those who regard lying vanities, but I trust in Yahweh.

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.

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.

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.

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,

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.

Does the rain have a father? Or who fathers the drops of dew?

“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.

“Ah Lord Yahweh! Behold, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for you.

Yet the number of the children of Israel will be as the sand of the sea, which can’t be measured or counted; and it will come to pass that, in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’

“What value does the engraved image have, that its maker has engraved it; the molten image, even the teacher of lies, that he who fashions its form trusts in it, to make mute idols?

Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?

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

They moved him to jealousy with strange gods. They provoked him to anger with abominations.

Whoever offers the sacrifice of thanksgiving glorifies me, and prepares his way so that I will show God’s salvation to him.”

Valiant men lie plundered, they have slept their last sleep. None of the men of war can lift their hands.

For they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their engraved images.

My son, give me your heart; and let your eyes keep in my ways.

He will give the rain for your seed, with which you will sow the ground; and bread of the increase of the ground will be rich and plentiful. In that day, your livestock will feed in large pastures.

Behold, you are nothing, and your work is nothing. He who chooses you is an abomination.

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

“How can I pardon you? Your children have forsaken me, and sworn by what are no gods. When I had fed them to the full, they committed adultery, and assembled themselves in troops at the prostitutes’ houses.

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

Yahweh, my strength, and my stronghold, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the nations will come to you from the ends of the earth, and will say, “Our fathers have inherited nothing but lies, vanity and things in which there is no profit.

As they were multiplied, so they sinned against me. I will change their glory into shame.

My people, what have I done to you? How have I burdened you? Answer me!

Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and said about him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no deceit!”

But Peter raised him up, saying, “Stand up! I myself am also a man.”

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;

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.

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.

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

Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it didn’t rain on the earth for three years and six months.

For, “He who would love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit.

He said with a loud voice, “Fear the Lord, and give him glory; for the hour of his judgment has come. Worship him who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and the springs of waters!”

Who wouldn’t fear you, Lord, and glorify your name? For you only are holy. For all the nations will come and worship before you. For your righteous acts have been revealed.”

“Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned my wrath away from the children of Israel, in that he was jealous with my jealousy among them, so that I didn’t consume the children of Israel in my jealousy.

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.”

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.”

Oh that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways!

They draw near who follow after wickedness. They are far from your law.

All the people will know, including Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria, who say in pride and in arrogance of heart,

“Listen to me, house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel, that have been carried from their birth, that have been carried from the womb.

Listen to me, you stubborn-hearted, who are far from righteousness!

“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.”

For Yahweh of Armies, who planted you, has pronounced evil against you, because of the evil of the house of Israel and of the house of Judah, which they have done to themselves in provoking me to anger by offering incense to Baal.

“Son of man, those who inhabit the waste places in the land of Israel speak, saying, ‘Abraham was one, and he inherited the land; but we are many. The land is given us for inheritance.’

You say also, ‘Behold, what a weariness it is!’ and you have sniffed at it”, says Yahweh of Armies; “and you have brought that which was taken by violence, the lame, and the sick; thus you bring the offering. Should I accept this at your hand?” says Yahweh.

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

As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them, even as on us at the beginning.

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.

As he says also in Hosea, “I will call them ‘my people,’ which were not my people; and her ‘beloved,’ who was not beloved.”

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.

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

Those who make them will be like them; yes, everyone who trusts in them.

Everyone who makes a carved image is vain. The things that they delight in will not profit. Their own witnesses don’t see, nor know, that they may be disappointed.

For the customs of the peoples are vanity; for one cuts a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman with the ax.

Those who regard lying vanities forsake their own mercy.

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.

You shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land. You shall break down their altars.’ But you have not listened to my voice. Why have you done this?

Therefore Yahweh’s anger burned against Amaziah, and he sent to him a prophet, who said to him, “Why have you sought after the gods of the people, which have not delivered their own people out of your hand?”

“If I have walked with falsehood, and my foot has hurried to deceit

For he doesn’t need to consider a man further, that he should go before God in judgment.

You sons of men, how long shall my glory be turned into dishonor? Will you love vanity and seek after falsehood?

Don’t forsake your friend and your father’s friend. Don’t go to your brother’s house in the day of your disaster. A neighbor who is near is better than a distant brother.

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.

What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? Why, when I looked for it to yield grapes, did it yield wild grapes?

Yet you have not called on me, Jacob; but you have been weary of me, Israel.

Has a nation changed its gods, which really are no gods? But my people have changed their glory for that which doesn’t profit.

Generation, consider Yahweh’s word. Have I been a wilderness to Israel? Or a land of thick darkness? Why do my people say, ‘We have broken loose. We will come to you no more?’

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.

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.

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

I raised up some of your sons for prophets, and some of your young men for Nazirites. Isn’t this true, you children of Israel?” says Yahweh.

“I have loved you,” says Yahweh. Yet you say, “How have you loved us?” “Wasn’t Esau Jacob’s brother?” says Yahweh, “Yet I loved Jacob;

Not many days after, the younger son gathered all of this together and traveled into a far country. There he wasted his property with riotous living.

“Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to the living God, who made the sky, the earth, the sea, and all that is in them;

I fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’

But do you want to know, vain man, that faith apart from works is dead?

“Come now, and let’s reason together,” says Yahweh: “Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

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;

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

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.

“Son of man, your brothers, even your brothers, the men of your relatives, and all the house of Israel, all of them, are they to whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said, ‘Go far away from Yahweh. This land has been given to us for a possession.’ ”

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