Thematic Bible




Thematic Bible




But when the judge died, they turned back and behaved more corruptly than their fathers, in following and serving other gods, and bowing down to them. They did not abandon their practices or their stubborn ways.

The Lord said to Moses, Go down, for your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves; They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them; they have made them a molten calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, These are your gods, O Israel, that brought you up out of the land of Egypt!


Rejoice not, O Israel, with exultation as do the peoples, for you have played the harlot, forsaking your God. You have loved [a harlot's] hire upon every threshing floor [ascribing the harvest to the Baals instead of to God]. The threshing floor and the winevat shall not feed them, and the new wine shall fail them. They shall not remain in the Lord's land, but Ephraim shall return to [another] Egypt and they shall eat unclean food in Assyria. read more.
They shall not pour out wine offerings to the Lord, neither shall they be pleasing to Him. Their sacrifices shall be to them as the bread of mourners; all who eat of them shall be defiled, for their bread shall be [only] for their appetite; it shall not come into the house of the Lord [to be offered first to Him]. What will you do on the day of the appointed solemn assembly or festival and on the day of the feast of the Lord [when you are in exile]? For behold, they are gone away from devastation and destruction; Egypt shall gather them in; Memphis shall bury them. Their precious things of silver shall be in the possession of nettles; thorns shall be [growing] in their tents. The days of visitation and punishment have come; the days of recompense have come; Israel shall know it. The prophet is [considered] a crazed fool and the man who is inspired is [treated as if] mad or a fanatic, because of the abundance of your iniquity and because the enmity, hostility, and persecution are great. Ephraim was [intended to be] a watchman with my God [and a prophet to the surrounding nations]; but he, that prophet, has become a fowler's snare in all his ways. There is enmity, hostility, and persecution in the house of his God. They have deeply corrupted themselves as in the days of Gibeah. The Lord will [earnestly] remember their iniquity; He will punish their sins.

For among them are those who worm their way into homes and captivate silly and weak-natured and spiritually dwarfed women, loaded down with [the burden of their] sins [and easily] swayed and led away by various evil desires and seductive impulses. [These weak women will listen to anybody who will teach them]; they are forever inquiring and getting information, but are never able to arrive at a recognition and knowledge of the Truth. Now just as Jannes and Jambres were hostile to and resisted Moses, so these men also are hostile to and oppose the Truth. They have depraved and distorted minds, and are reprobate and counterfeit and to be rejected as far as the faith is concerned.

[The wicked are sentenced to suffer] just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the adjacent towns -- "which likewise gave themselves over to impurity and indulged in unnatural vice and sensual perversity -- "are laid out [in plain sight] as an exhibit of perpetual punishment [to warn] of everlasting fire. Nevertheless in like manner, these dreamers also corrupt the body, scorn and reject authority and government, and revile and libel and scoff at [heavenly] glories (the glorious ones). But when [even] the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, judicially argued (disputed) about the body of Moses, he dared not [presume to] bring an abusive condemnation against him, but [simply] said, The Lord rebuke you! read more.
But these men revile (scoff and sneer at) anything they do not happen to be acquainted with and do not understand; and whatever they do understand physically [that which they know by mere instinct], like irrational beasts -- "by these they corrupt themselves and are destroyed (perish).


His master said to him, We will not turn aside into the city of foreigners where there are no Israelites. We will go on to Gibeah. And he said to his servant, Come and let us go to one of these places and spend the night in Gibeah or in Ramah. So they passed on and went their way, and the sun went down on them near Gibeah, which belongs to Benjamin, read more.
And they turned aside there to go in and lodge at Gibeah. And the Levite went in and sat down in the open square of the city, for no man took them into his house to spend the night. And behold, an old man was coming from his work in the field at evening. He was from the hill country of Ephraim but was living temporarily in Gibeah, but the men of the place were Benjamites. And when he looked up, he saw the wayfarer in the city square, and the old man said, Where are you going? And from where did you come? The Levite replied, We are passing from Bethlehem of Judah to the rear side of the hill country of Ephraim; I am from there. I went to Bethlehem of Judah, but I am [now] going [home] to the house of the Lord [where I serve], and there is no man who receives me into his house. Yet we have both straw and provender for our donkeys and bread and wine also for me, your handmaid, and the young man who is with your servants; there is no lack of anything. And the old man said, Peace be to you, but leave all your wants to me; only do not lodge in the street. So he brought him into his house and gave provender to the donkeys. And the guests washed their feet and ate and drank. Now as they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of the city, certain worthless fellows, beset the house round about, beat on the door, and said to the master of the house, the old man, Bring forth the man who came to your house, that we may have intercourse with him. And the man, the master of the house, went out and said to them, No, my kinsmen, I pray you, do not act so wickedly; seeing that this man is my guest, do not do this [wicked] folly. Behold, here are my virgin daughter and this man's concubine; them I will bring out now; debase them and do with them what seems good to you, but to this man do not so vile a thing. But the men would not listen to him. So the man took his concubine and forced her forth to them, and they had intercourse with her and abused her all the night until morning. And when the dawn began to break, they let her go. At daybreak the woman came and fell down and lay at the door of the man's house where her master was, till it was light. And her master rose up in the morning and opened the doors of the house and went out to go his way; and behold, his concubine had fallen down at the door of the house, and her hands were upon the threshold. And he said to her, Up, and let us be going. But there was no answer [for she was dead]. Then he put her [body] upon the donkey, and the man rose up and went home. And when he came into his house, he took a knife, and took hold of his dead concubine and divided her [body] limb by limb into twelve pieces and sent her [body] throughout all the territory of Israel. And all who saw it said, There was no such deed done or seen from the day that the Israelites came up out of the land of Egypt to this day; consider it, take counsel, and speak [your minds].


They have deeply corrupted (perverted) themselves
As in the days of Gibeah.
The Lord will remember their wickedness and guilt;
He will punish their sins.


O Israel, you have [willfully] sinned since the days of Gibeah;
There they (Israel) stand!
Will not the battle against the sons of wickedness overtake them at Gibeah?