Matthew 15:9

“ ‘You shall not swear by my name falsely, and profane the name of your God. I am Yahweh.

You shall not add to the word which I command you, neither shall you take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of Yahweh your God which I command you.

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

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.

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

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.

But refuse profane and old wives’ fables. Exercise yourself toward godliness.

but shun foolish questionings, genealogies, strife, and disputes about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain.

For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, even so faith apart from works is dead.

Yahweh will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with fiery heat, with the sword, with blight, and with mildew. They will pursue you until you perish.

I hated all my labor in which I labored under the sun, because I must leave it to the man who comes after me.

‘Why have we fasted,’ they say, ‘and you don’t see? Why have we afflicted our soul, and you don’t notice?’ “Behold, in the day of your fast you find pleasure, and oppress all your laborers.

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.

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 God said to him, ‘You foolish one, tonight your soul is required of you. The things which you have prepared—whose will they be?’

Don’t work for the food which perishes, but for the food which remains to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For God the Father has sealed him.”

See then the goodness and severity of God. Toward those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in his goodness; otherwise you also will be cut off.

that we may no longer be children, tossed back and forth and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in craftiness, after the wiles of error;

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

He shall offer his offering with the sacrifice of his peace offerings for thanksgiving with cakes of leavened bread.

Only be strong and very courageous. Be careful to observe to do according to all the law which Moses my servant commanded you. Don’t turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go.

They encamped against them, and destroyed the increase of the earth, until you come to Gaza. They left no sustenance in Israel, and no sheep, ox, or donkey.

But the men were very good to us, and we were not harmed, and we didn’t miss anything, as long as we went with them, when we were in the fields.

then let me sow, and let another eat. Yes, let the produce of my field be rooted out.

For he has said, ‘It profits a man nothing that he should delight himself with God.’

I will wash my hands in innocence, so I will go about your altar, Yahweh,

Unless Yahweh builds the house, they who build it labor in vain. Unless Yahweh watches over the city, the watchman guards it in vain.

He who kills an ox is as he who kills a man; he who sacrifices a lamb, as he who breaks a dog’s neck; he who offers an offering, as he who offers pig’s blood; he who burns frankincense, as he who blesses an idol. Yes, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delights in their abominations:

“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.

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

They have sown wheat, and have reaped thorns. They have exhausted themselves, and profit nothing. You will be ashamed of your fruits, because of Yahweh’s fierce anger.”

“I will appoint over them four kinds,” says Yahweh: “the sword to kill, the dogs to tear, the birds of the sky, and the animals of the earth, to devour and to destroy.

for God’s Kingdom is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.

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.

and will turn away their ears from the truth, and turn away to fables.

Therefore, putting away all filthiness and overflowing of wickedness, receive with humility the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

But above all things, my brothers, don’t swear— not by heaven, or by the earth, or by any other oath; but let your “yes” be “yes”, and your “no”, “no”, so that you don’t fall into hypocrisy.

For we didn’t follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

“Make two trumpets of silver. You shall make them of beaten work. You shall use them for the calling of the congregation, and for the journeying of the camps.

Among these nations you will find no ease, and there will be no rest for the sole of your foot; but Yahweh will give you there a trembling heart, failing of eyes, and pining of soul.

The man of yours whom I don’t cut off from my altar will consume your eyes and grieve your heart. All the increase of your house will die in the flower of their age.

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.”

Now I have heard that you have shearers. Your shepherds have now been with us, and we didn’t harm them. Nothing was missing from them all the time they were in Carmel.

But Gehazi the servant of Elisha the man of God, said, “Behold, my master has spared this Naaman the Syrian, in not receiving at his hands that which he brought. As Yahweh lives, I will run after him, and take something from him.”

What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? What profit should we have, if we pray to him?’

The humble shall eat and be satisfied. They shall praise Yahweh who seek after him. Let your hearts live forever.

For he sees that wise men die; likewise the fool and the senseless perish, and leave their wealth to others.

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

He who tills his land shall have plenty of bread, but he who chases fantasies is void of understanding.

Whoever rewards evil for good, evil shall not depart from his house.

For to the man who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge, and joy; but to the sinner he gives travail, to gather and to heap up, that he may give to him who pleases God. This also is vanity and a chasing after wind.

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 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.”

I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness, and my people will be satisfied with my goodness,” says Yahweh.

but you turned and profaned my name, and every man caused his servant, and every man his handmaid, whom you had let go free at their pleasure, to return. You brought them into subjection, to be to you for servants and for handmaids.’ ”

“ ‘ “I will make my holy name known among my people Israel. I won’t allow my holy name to be profaned any more. Then the nations will know that I am Yahweh, the Holy One in Israel.

For they sow the wind, and they will reap the whirlwind. He has no standing grain. The stalk will yield no head. If it does yield, strangers will swallow it up.

Blow the trumpet in Zion! Sanctify a fast. Call a solemn assembly.

In praying, don’t use vain repetitions, as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their much speaking.

But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, but you bypass justice and God’s love. You ought to have done these, and not to have left the other undone.

He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord; and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it. He who eats, eats to the Lord, for he gives God thanks. He who doesn’t eat, to the Lord he doesn’t eat, and gives God thanks.

and those who use the world, as not using it to the fullest. For the mode of this world passes away.

Now I praise you, brothers, that you remember me in all things, and hold firm the traditions, even as I delivered them to you.

But by the grace of God I am what I am. His grace which was given to me was not futile, but I worked more than all of them; yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.

I don’t reject the grace of God. For if righteousness is through the law, then Christ died for nothing!”

Remind them of these things, charging them in the sight of the Lord, that they don’t argue about words, to no profit, to the subverting of those who hear.

not paying attention to Jewish fables and commandments of men who turn away from the truth.

but Christ is faithful as a Son over his house. We are his house, if we hold fast our confidence and the glorying of our hope firm to the end.

They will eat the fruit of your livestock and the fruit of your ground, until you are destroyed. They also won’t leave you grain, new wine, oil, the increase of your livestock, or the young of your flock, until they have caused you to perish.

Therefore he consumed their days in vanity, and their years in terror.

The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination— how much more, when he brings it with a wicked mind!

Bring no more vain offerings. Incense is an abomination to me. New moons, Sabbaths, and convocations: I can’t stand evil assemblies.

They will eat up your harvest and your bread, which your sons and your daughters should eat. They will eat up your flocks and your herds. They will eat up your vines and your fig trees. They will beat down your fortified cities in which you trust with the sword.

You will sow, but won’t reap. You will tread the olives, but won’t anoint yourself with oil; and crush grapes, but won’t drink the wine.

teaching them to observe all things that I commanded you. Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.

But they worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’

and not to pay attention to myths and endless genealogies, which cause disputes, rather than God’s stewardship, which is in faith—

Don’t be carried away by various and strange teachings, for it is good that the heart be established by grace, not by food, through which those who were so occupied were not benefited.

“You shall not misuse the name of Yahweh your God, for Yahweh will not hold him guiltless who misuses his name.

You shall make it hollow with planks. They shall make it as it has been shown you on the mountain.

I also will do this to you: I will appoint terror over you, even consumption and fever, that shall consume the eyes, and make the soul to pine away. You will sow your seed in vain, for your enemies will eat it.

Your strength will be spent in vain; for your land won’t yield its increase, neither will the trees of the land yield their fruit.

Whatever thing I command you, that you shall observe to do. You shall not add to it, nor take away from it.

Then Micah said, “Now I know that Yahweh will do good to me, since I have a Levite as my priest.”

Now David had said, “Surely in vain I have kept all that this fellow has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that pertained to him. He has returned me evil for good.

King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath Pileser king of Assyria, and saw the altar that was at Damascus; and king Ahaz sent to Urijah the priest a drawing of the altar and plans to build it.

“Surely every man walks like a shadow. Surely they busy themselves in vain. He heaps up, and doesn’t know who shall gather.

Surely I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocence,

Why do you spend money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which doesn’t satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in richness.

offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving of that which is leavened, and proclaim free will offerings and brag about them: for this pleases you, you children of Israel,” says the Lord Yahweh.

You have said, ‘It is vain to serve God;’ and ‘What profit is it that we have followed his instructions, and that we have walked mournfully before Yahweh of Armies?

For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription: ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ What therefore you worship in ignorance, I announce to you.

by which also you are saved, if you hold firmly the word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.

If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith also is in vain.

If anyone among you thinks himself to be religious while he doesn’t bridle his tongue, but deceives his heart, this man’s religion is worthless.

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

I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book, if anyone adds to them, may God add to him the plagues which are written in this book.