Psalms 31:6

You, Solomon my son, know the God of your father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind; for Yahweh searches all hearts, and understands all the imaginations of the thoughts. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will cast you off forever.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

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.”

Yet the righteous will hold to his way. He who has clean hands will grow stronger and stronger.

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

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 the word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and is able to discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

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.

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?

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,

for they called the people to the sacrifices of their gods. The people ate and bowed down to their gods.

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.

But I know your sitting down, your going out, your coming in, and your raging against me.

“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.’

Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, “Why do you think evil in your hearts?

Now concerning things sacrificed to idols: We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.

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

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

The rest of mankind, who were not killed with these plagues, didn’t repent of the works of their hands, that they wouldn’t worship demons, and the idols of gold, and of silver, and of brass, and of stone, and of wood; which can’t see, hear, or walk.

They shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices to the goat idols, after which they play the prostitute. This shall be a statute forever to them throughout their generations.’

Hear, Israel: Yahweh is our God. Yahweh is one.

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

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.

But Yahweh said to Samuel, “Don’t look on his face, or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for I don’t see as man sees. For man looks at the outward appearance, but Yahweh looks at the heart.”

Yahweh rewarded me according to my righteousness. He rewarded me according to the cleanness of my hands.

for his sins which he sinned in doing that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, in walking in the way of Jeroboam, and in his sin which he did, to make Israel to sin.

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

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

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

For you are great, and do wondrous things. You are God alone.

I look at the faithless with loathing, because they don’t observe your word.

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

“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.

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.

For my people have forgotten me. They have burned incense to false gods. They have been made to stumble in their ways, in the ancient paths, to walk in byways, in a way not built up,

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

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

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

You see and hear that not at Ephesus alone, but almost throughout all Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away many people, saying that they are no gods that are made with hands.

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;

yet to us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we live through him.

What am I saying then? That a thing sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything?

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.

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.”

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

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.

“Don’t make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, lest they play the prostitute after their gods, and sacrifice to their gods, and one call you and you eat of his sacrifice;

“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.

Jehu the son of Hanani the seer went out to meet him, and said to king Jehoshaphat, “Should you help the wicked, and love those who hate Yahweh? Because of this, wrath is on you from before Yahweh.

But you, Yahweh, are a shield around me, my glory, and the one who lifts up my head.

Yahweh has rewarded me according to my righteousness. According to the cleanness of my hands, he has recompensed me.

Yahweh knows the thoughts of man, that they are futile.

Yahweh, don’t I hate those who hate you? Am I not grieved with those who rise up against you?

“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.”

“You shall say this to them: ‘The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth will perish from the earth, and from under the heavens.’ ”

Every man has become brutish and without knowledge. Every goldsmith is disappointed by his engraved image; for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them.

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

You see their sitting down and their rising up. I am their song.

The days of visitation have come. The days of reckoning have come. Israel will consider the prophet to be a fool, and the man who is inspired to be insane, because of the abundance of your sins, and because your hostility is great.

“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?

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

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

However at that time, not knowing God, you were in bondage to those who by nature are not gods.

“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, the Holy One, to receive the glory, the honor, and the power, for you created all things, and because of your desire they existed, and were created!”

I hate the assembly of evildoers, and will not sit with the wicked.

Those who regard lying vanities forsake their own mercy.

But I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and not to God, and I don’t desire that you would have fellowship with demons.

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

He who has clean hands and a pure heart; who has not lifted up his soul to falsehood, and has not sworn deceitfully.

You know my sitting down and my rising up. You perceive my thoughts from afar.

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

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

He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the ruler of the feast.” So they took it.

“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;

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.

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.