It may be that they will listen and everyone will turn from his wickedness, so that I may relent and reverse [My decision concerning] the disaster which I am planning to do to them because of their malevolent deeds.’

Do not be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets proclaimed, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, “Repent [that is, change your way of thinking] and return now from your evil way [of life] and from your evil deeds.”’ But they did not listen or pay attention to Me,” declares the Lord.

He who is steadfast in righteousness attains life,
But he who pursues evil attains his own death.

Guard your steps and focus on what you are doing as you go to the house of God and draw near to listen rather than to offer the [careless or irreverent] sacrifice of fools; for they are too ignorant to know they are doing evil.

The [empty-headed] fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt and evil, and have committed repulsive injustice;
There is no one who does good.

“Blessed (happy, fortunate) is the man who does this,
And the son of man who takes hold of it,
Who keeps the Sabbath without profaning it,
And keeps his hand from doing any evil.”

No one sues righteously [but for the sake of doing injury to others—to take some undue advantage], and no one pleads [his case] in truth; [but rather]
They trust in empty arguments and speak lies;
They conceive trouble and bring forth injustice.

Why have you despised the word of the Lord by doing evil in His sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife. You have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.

because of the sins he had committed, doing evil in the sight of the Lord, by walking in the way of Jeroboam, and because of his sin he caused Israel to sin.

“Woe (judgment is coming) to him who obtains wicked gain for his house [and thinks by so doing]
To set his nest on high,
That he may be rescued from the hand of evil.

Moreover, Manasseh shed a very great quantity of innocent blood, until he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another; besides his sin with which he made Judah sin, by doing evil in the sight of the Lord.

And all the skilled men who were doing all the work on the sanctuary came, each one from the work which he was doing,

“Son of man, when the house of Israel was living in their own land, they defiled it by their [own] behavior and by their [idolatrous] actions. Their conduct before Me was like the uncleanness of a woman during her [physical] impurity.

“Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean;
Get your evil deeds out of My sight.
Stop doing evil,

When Moses’ father-in-law saw everything that he was doing for the people, he said, “What is this that you are doing for the people? Why are you sitting alone [as a judge] with all the people standing around you from dawn to dusk?”

And Abimelech said to Abraham, “What have you encountered or seen [in us or our customs], that you have done this [unjust] thing?”

Is this not my lord’s drinking cup and the one which he uses for divination? You have done [a great and unforgivable] wrong in doing this.’”

and they said to Moses, “The people are bringing much more than enough for the construction work which the Lord commanded us to do.”

‘If anyone of the common people sins unintentionally by doing any of the things the Lord has commanded not to be done, and becomes guilty,

or has found what was lost and lied about it and sworn falsely, so that he sins in regard to any one of the things a man may do—

You shall remain day and night for seven days at the doorway of the Tent of Meeting, doing what the Lord has required you to do, so that you will not die; for so I (Moses) have been commanded.”

“You shall not do at all what we are doing here [in the camp] today, every man doing whatever is right in his [own] eyes.

Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?

When Adoni-zedek king of Jerusalem heard that Joshua had captured Ai, and had utterly destroyed it—as he had done to Jericho and its king, so he had done to Ai and its king—and that the residents of Gibeon had made peace with Israel and were [living] among them,

“But if they had stood in My council,
Then they would have caused My people to hear My words,
Then they would have turned My people from their evil way
And from the evil of their decisions and deeds.

Again, when a righteous man turns from his righteousness (right standing with God) and sins, and I place an obstacle before him, he will die; since you have not warned him, he will die in his sin, and the righteous deeds which he has done will not be remembered; but you will be responsible for his blood.

Furthermore, He said to me, “Son of man, do you see what they are doing, the great repulsive acts which the house of Israel is committing here, to drive Me far away from My sanctuary? But you will again see greater repulsive acts.”

Then He said to me, “The wickedness (guilt) of the house of Israel and Judah is extremely great; the land is full of blood and the city is full of perversion and injustice; for they say, ‘The Lord has abandoned the land; the Lord does not see [what we are doing].’

“All the inhabitants of the earth are regarded as nothing.
But He does according to His will in the host of heaven
And among the inhabitants of the earth;
And no one can hold back His hand
Or say to Him, ‘What have You done?’

Then they said one to another, “We are not doing the right thing. This is a day of good news, yet we are keeping silent. If we wait until the morning light, some punishment [for not reporting this now] will come on us. So now come, let us go and tell the king’s household.”

Then I considered all which my hands had done and labored to do, and behold, all was vanity and chasing after the wind and there was no profit (nothing of lasting value) under the sun.

Yet it is not Assyria’s intention [to do My will],
Nor does it plan so in its heart,
But instead it is its purpose to destroy
And to cut off many nations.

“Listen carefully, I am about to do a new thing,
Now it will spring forth;
Will you not be aware of it?
I will even put a road in the wilderness,
Rivers in the desert.