Your own wickedness will bring about your punishment. Your unfaithful acts will bring down discipline on you. Know, then, and realize how utterly harmful it was for you to reject me, the Lord your God, to show no respect for me," says the Lord God who rules over all.

"The way you have lived and the things you have done will bring this on you. This is the punishment you deserve, and it will be painful indeed. The pain will be so bad it will pierce your heart."

if you reject my statutes and abhor my regulations so that you do not keep all my commandments and you break my covenant --

"But if you do not do this, then look, you will have sinned against the Lord. And know that your sin will find you out.

"But if you ignore the Lord your God and are not careful to keep all his commandments and statutes I am giving you today, then all these curses will come upon you in full force:

Even as I have seen, those who plow iniquity and those who sow trouble reap the same.

The sinful nation is as good as dead, the people weighed down by evil deeds. They are offspring who do wrong, children who do wicked things. They have abandoned the Lord, and rejected the Holy One of Israel. They are alienated from him.

I will destroy you, O Israel! Who is there to help you?

In that

"Do so because my people have committed a double wrong: they have rejected me, the fountain of life-giving water, and they have dug cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns which cannot even hold water."

"And you, Solomon my son, obey the God of your father and serve him with a submissive attitude and a willing spirit, for the Lord examines all minds and understands every motive of one's thoughts. If you seek him, he will let you find him, but if you abandon him, he will reject you permanently.

"But if you people ever turn away from me, fail to obey the regulations and rules I instructed you to keep, and decide to serve and worship other gods,

When he

But the Lord took note and despised them because his sons and daughters enraged him.

You led your people like a flock of sheep, by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

He guided them safely along, while the sea covered their enemies.

He led them on a level road, that they might find a city in which to live.

to the one who led his people through the wilderness, for his loyal love endures,

His people remembered the ancient times. Where is the one who brought them up out of the sea, along with the shepherd of his flock? Where is the one who placed his holy Spirit among them,

General references

Your misdeeds have stopped these things from coming. Your sins have deprived you of my bounty.'

The answer will come back, "It is because they broke their covenant with the Lord their God and worshiped and served other gods."

According to their uncleanness and rebellion I have dealt with them, and I hid my face from them.