Leviticus 26:15

To man he said, ‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom. To depart from evil is understanding.’ ”

The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of wisdom. The knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

This is the end of the matter. All has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.

“Look among the nations, watch, and wonder marvelously; for I am working a work in your days, which you will not believe though it is told you.

The fear of Yahweh teaches wisdom. Before honor is humility.

On the way at a lodging place, Yahweh met Moses and wanted to kill him.

For you are a holy people to Yahweh your God, and Yahweh has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, above all peoples who are on the face of the earth.

The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of wisdom. All those who do his work have a good understanding. His praise endures forever!

But we all, with unveiled face seeing the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord, the Spirit.

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

A fool has no delight in understanding, but only in revealing his own opinion.

Yahweh our God made a covenant with us in Horeb.

For you are a holy people to Yahweh your God. Yahweh your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, above all peoples who are on the face of the earth.

Yahweh has declared today that you are a people for his own possession, as he has promised you, and that you should keep all his commandments.

They abandoned Yahweh, the God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed themselves down to them; and they provoked Yahweh to anger.

He went up from there to Bethel. As he was going up by the way, some youths came out of the city and mocked him, and said to him, “Go up, you baldy! Go up, you baldy!”

“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.

but you have ignored all my counsel, and wanted none of my reproof;

Therefore his calamity will come suddenly. He will be broken suddenly, and that without remedy.

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.

Now the natural man doesn’t receive the things of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to him, and he can’t know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

You adulterers and adulteresses, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

Moses said to him, “As soon as I have gone out of the city, I will spread out my hands to Yahweh. The thunders shall cease, and there will not be any more hail; that you may know that the earth is Yahweh’s.

“ ‘Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread; even the first day you shall put away yeast out of your houses, for whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel.

All the people answered together, and said, “All that Yahweh has spoken we will do.” Moses reported the words of the people to Yahweh.

But the man who is clean, and is not on a journey, and fails to keep the Passover, that soul shall be cut off from his people. Because he didn’t offer the offering of Yahweh in its appointed season, that man shall bear his sin.

Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who shall hear all these statutes and say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding 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.

Behold, to Yahweh your God belongs heaven, the heaven of heavens, and the earth, with all that is therein.

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 children of Israel again did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, and served the Baals, the Ashtaroth, the gods of Syria, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the children of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines. They abandoned Yahweh, and didn’t serve him.

Samuel said, “Has Yahweh as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying Yahweh’s voice? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.

Why have you despised Yahweh’s word, to do that which is evil in his sight? You have struck Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife, and have slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon.

Otherwise it will happen, when my lord the king sleeps with his fathers, that I and my son Solomon will be considered criminals.”

but have done evil above all who were before you, and have gone and made for yourself other gods, molten images, to provoke me to anger, and have cast me behind your back;

Who has first given to me, that I should repay him? Everything under the heavens is mine.

Come, you children, listen to me. I will teach you the fear of Yahweh.

For Yah has chosen Jacob for himself, Israel for his own possession.

Therefore they will eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own schemes.

Whoever despises instruction will pay for it, but he who respects a command will be rewarded.

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

For as often as I speak, I cry out; I cry, “Violence and destruction!” because Yahweh’s word has been made a reproach to me, and a derision, all day.

She has rebelled against my ordinances in doing wickedness more than the nations, and against my statutes more than the countries that are around her; for they have rejected my ordinances, and as for my statutes, they have not walked in them.’

When Yahweh spoke at first by Hosea, Yahweh said to Hosea, “Go, take for yourself a wife of prostitution and children of unfaithfulness; for the land commits great adultery, forsaking Yahweh.”

Yes, they made their hearts as hard as flint, lest they might hear the law, and the words which Yahweh of Armies had sent by his Spirit by the former prophets. Therefore great wrath came from Yahweh of Armies.

Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me. Whoever rejects me rejects him who sent me.”

and with all deception of wickedness for those who are being lost, because they didn’t receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved.

He who keeps his commandments remains in him, and he in him. By this we know that he remains in us, by the Spirit which he gave us.

Whoever compounds any like it, or whoever puts any of it on a stranger, he shall be cut off from his people.’ ”

Yahweh didn’t make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive today.

Yet they didn’t listen to their judges; for they prostituted themselves to other gods, and bowed themselves down to them. They quickly turned away from the way in which their fathers walked, obeying Yahweh’s commandments. They didn’t do so.

But when the judge was dead, they turned back, and dealt more corruptly than their fathers in following other gods to serve them and to bow down to them. They didn’t cease what they were doing, or give up their stubborn ways.

Yet you have forsaken me and served other gods. Therefore I will save you no more.

When your days are fulfilled, and you sleep with your fathers, I will set up your offspring after you, who will proceed out of your body, and I will establish his kingdom.

So the couriers passed from city to city through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh, even to Zebulun, but people ridiculed them and mocked them.

The earth is Yahweh’s, with its fullness; the world, and those who dwell in it.

Our heart has not turned back, neither have our steps strayed from your path,

If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world is mine, and all that is in it.

But my people didn’t listen to my voice. Israel desired none of me.

“How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity? How long will mockers delight themselves in mockery, and fools hate knowledge?

A fool despises his father’s correction, but he who heeds reproof shows prudence.

He who is often rebuked and stiffens his neck will be destroyed suddenly, with no remedy.

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

They have denied Yahweh, and said, “It is not he. Evil will won’t come on us. We won’t see sword or famine.

But they didn’t listen. They didn’t turn their ear, but made their neck stiff, that they might not hear, and might not receive instruction.

O earth, earth, earth, hear Yahweh’s word!

because they have not listened to my words,” says Yahweh, “with which I sent to them my servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them; but you would not hear,” says Yahweh.

The soul who sins, he shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be on him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be on him.

They shall be mine,” says Yahweh of Armies, “my own possession in the day that I make, and I will spare them, as a man spares his own son who serves him.

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

who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good works.

By faith, Abraham, when he was called, obeyed to go out to the place which he was to receive for an inheritance. He went out, not knowing where he went.

Yahweh said to Moses, “Behold, you shall sleep with your fathers. This people will rise up and play the prostitute after the strange gods of the land where they go to be among them, and will forsake me and break my covenant which I have made with them.

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.

The uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that soul shall be cut off from his people. He has broken my covenant.”

Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice, and keep my covenant, then you shall be my own possession from among all peoples; for all the earth is mine;

He took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people, and they said, “We will do all that Yahweh has said, and be obedient.”

I will destroy your high places, and cut down your incense altars, and cast your dead bodies upon the bodies of your idols; and my soul will abhor you.

The land also will be left by them, and will enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them; and they will accept the punishment of their iniquity because they rejected my ordinances, and their soul abhorred my statutes.

Because he has despised Yahweh’s word, and has broken his commandment, that soul shall be utterly cut off. His iniquity shall be on him.’ ”

If there is found among you, within any of your gates which Yahweh your God gives you, a man or woman who does that which is evil in Yahweh your God’s sight in transgressing his covenant,

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.

since you hate instruction, and throw my words behind you?

The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge; but the foolish despise wisdom and instruction.

They wanted none of my counsel. They despised all my reproof.

and say, “How I have hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof;

The earth also is polluted under its inhabitants, because they have transgressed the laws, violated the statutes, and broken the everlasting covenant.

Hear, earth! Behold, I will bring evil on this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not listened to my words; and as for my law, they have rejected it.

They have turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers, who refused to hear my words. They have gone after other gods to serve them. The house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken my covenant which I made with their fathers.

not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which covenant of mine they broke, although I was a husband to them,” says Yahweh.

“ ‘For the Lord Yahweh says: “I will also deal with you as you have done, who have despised the oath in breaking the covenant.

“ ‘ “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.

in that you have brought in foreigners, uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh, to be in my sanctuary, to profane it, even my house, when you offer my bread, the fat and the blood, and they have broken my covenant, to add to all your abominations.

Please listen to this, you heads of the house of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel, who abhor justice, and pervert all equity.

‘Behold, you scoffers, and wonder, and perish; for I work a work in your days, a work which you will in no way believe, if one declares it to you.’ ”

because the mind of the flesh is hostile toward God; for it is not subject to God’s law, neither indeed can it be.

Therefore he who rejects this doesn’t reject man, but God, who has also given his Holy Spirit to you.

not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; for they didn’t continue in my covenant, and I disregarded them,” says the Lord.