Thematic Bible: National Sins


Thematic Bible



Behold, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom, pride, fullness of food, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.

By your great wisdom and by your trade have you increased your riches, and your heart is lifted up because of your riches:

But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked: you are grown fat, you are grown thick, you are covered with fatness; then he forsook God who made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.

Moab has been at ease from his youth, and he has settled on his dregs, and has not been emptied from vessel to vessel, neither has he gone into captivity: therefore his taste remained in him, and his scent is not changed.

But after they had rest, they did evil again before you: therefore you left them in the hand of their enemies, so that they had the dominion over them: yet when they returned, and cried unto you, you heard them from heaven; and many times did you deliver them according to your mercies;


And Jeroboam said in his heart, Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David: If this people go up to do sacrifice in the house of the LORD at Jerusalem, then shall the heart of this people turn again unto their lord, even unto Rehoboam king of Judah, and they shall kill me, and go again to Rehoboam king of Judah. Therefore the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. read more.
And he set the one in Beth-el, and the other put he in Dan. And this thing became a sin: for the people went to worship before the one, even unto Dan. And he made a house of high places, and made priests of the lowest of the people, who were not of the sons of Levi. And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like unto the feast that is in Judah, and he offered upon the altar. So did he in Beth-el, sacrificing unto the calves that he had made: and he placed in Beth-el the priests of the high places whom he had made. So he offered upon the altar which he had made in Beth-el the fifteenth day of the eighth month, even in the month which he had devised of his own heart; and ordained a feast unto the children of Israel: and he offered upon the altar, and burnt incense.

If a ruler hearkens to lies, all his servants are wicked.

And he shall give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, who did sin, and who made Israel to sin.

Moreover he made high places in the mountains of Judah, and caused the inhabitants of Jerusalem to commit harlotries, and led Judah astray. And there came a writing to him from Elijah the prophet, saying, Thus says the LORD God of David your father, Because you have not walked in the ways of Jehoshaphat your father, nor in the ways of Asa king of Judah, But have walked in the way of the kings of Israel, and have made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to play the harlot, like the harlotries of the house of Ahab, and also have slain your brothers of your father's house, who were better than yourself:


Cry aloud, spare not, lift up your voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.

Now go, write it before them on a tablet, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come, forever and ever:

Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness has come up before me.

And he said unto me, Son of man, I send you to the children of Israel, to a rebellious nation that has rebelled against me: they and their fathers have transgressed against me, even unto this very day. For they are impudent children and stubborn. I do send you unto them; and you shall say unto them, Thus says the Lord GOD. And they, whether they will hear, or whether they refuse, (for they are a rebellious house,) yet shall know that there has been a prophet among them.

Now, you son of man, will you judge, will you judge the bloody city? yea, you shall show her all her abominations.


And shall return unto the LORD your God, and shall obey his voice according to all that I command you this day, you and your children, with all your heart, and with all your soul;

And the children of Israel cried unto the LORD, saying, We have sinned against you, both because we have forsaken our God, and also served Baalim.

If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they trespassed against me, and that also they have walked contrary unto me;

Yet if they shall come to themselves in the land where they were carried captives, and repent, and make supplication unto you in the land of them that carried them captives, saying, We have sinned, and have done perversely, we have committed wickedness; And so return unto you with all their heart, and with all their soul, in the land of their enemies, which led them away captive, and pray unto you toward their land, which you gave unto their fathers, the city which you have chosen, and the house which I have built for your name:


And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, says the LORD, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans, and will make it perpetual desolations.

But if they will not obey, I will utterly pluck up and destroy that nation, says the LORD.

For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen: because their tongue and their deeds are against the LORD, to provoke the eyes of his glory.

Behold, therefore I will bring strangers upon you, the terrible of the nations: and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of your wisdom, and they shall defile your brightness. They shall bring you down to the pit, and you shall die the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the seas. Will you yet say before him that slays you, I am a god? but you shall be a man, and no god, in the hand of him that slays you. read more.
You shall die the deaths of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers: for I have spoken it, says the Lord GOD.



Therefore says the Lord, the LORD of hosts, the mighty One of Israel, Ah, I will rid myself of my adversaries, and avenge myself of my enemies:

Shall I not punish for these things? says the LORD: and shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?

I have set you for a tester and a fortress among my people, that you may know and test their way. They are all grievous revolters, walking with slanders: they are bronze and iron; they are all corrupters. The bellows blow fiercely, the lead is consumed by the fire; the smelter refines in vain: for the wicked are not removed. read more.
Rejected silver shall men call them, because the LORD has rejected them.


Let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare your people, O LORD, and give not your heritage to reproach, that the nations should rule over them: why should they say among the people, Where is their God?

Thus says the Lord GOD; Strike with your hand, and stamp with your foot, and say, Alas for all the evil abominations of the house of Israel! for they shall fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence.

But if you will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret for your pride; and my eye shall weep bitterly, and run down with tears, because the LORD's flock is carried away captive.

And it came to pass, that when he had commanded the man clothed with linen, saying, Take fire from between the wheels, from between the cherubim; then he went in, and stood beside the wheels.


Thus says the LORD; For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because they have despised the law of the LORD, and have not kept his commandments, and their lies caused them to err, after which their fathers have walked:

What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? why, when I expected that it should bring forth grapes, it brought forth wild grapes? And now; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it shall be eaten up; and break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down: And I will lay it waste: it shall not be pruned, nor dug; but there shall come up briers and thorns: I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. read more.
For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for justice, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry.

And I gave them my statutes, and showed them my judgments, which if a man does, he shall even live by them. Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the LORD that sanctifies them. But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness: they walked not in my statutes, and they despised my judgments, which if a man does, he shall even live by them; and my sabbaths they greatly polluted: then I said, I would pour out my fury upon them in the wilderness, to consume them.

Hear this word that the LORD has spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying, You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.


Hear, O earth: behold, I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not hearkened unto my words, nor to my law, but rejected it.

Hear the word of the LORD, you rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? says the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of male goats. When you come to appear before me, who has required this at your hand, to trample my courts? read more.
Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot endure; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary of bearing them.

Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom you know not; And come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations? Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen it, says the LORD. read more.
But go you now unto my place which was in Shiloh, where I set my name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel. And now, because you have done all these works, says the LORD, and I spoke unto you, rising up early and speaking, but you heard not; and I called you, but you answered not; Therefore will I do unto this house, which is called by my name, in which you trust, and unto the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh.


Behold, the days come, says the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD:

Her gates are sunk into the ground; he has destroyed and broken her bars: her king and her princes are among the nations: the law is no more; her prophets also find no vision from the LORD.

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you that kill the prophets, and stone them which are sent unto you, how often would I have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and you would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, you shall not see me again, till you shall say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.


Why should you be stricken any more? you will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.

For from the least of them even unto the greatest of them everyone is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even unto the priest everyone deals falsely.

Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in its broad places, if you can find a man, if there is any that executes justice, that seeks the truth; and I will pardon it. And though they say, The LORD lives; surely they swear falsely. O LORD, are not your eyes upon the truth? you have stricken them, but they have not grieved; you have consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction: they have made their faces harder than a rock; they have refused to return. read more.
Therefore I said, Surely these are poor; they are foolish: for they know not the way of the LORD, nor the law of their God. I will get me unto the great men, and will speak unto them; for they have known the way of the LORD, and the law of their God: but these have altogether broken the yoke, and burst the bonds.


Then the princes of Israel and the king humbled themselves; and they said, The LORD is righteous. And when the LORD saw that they humbled themselves, the word of the LORD came to Shemaiah, saying, They have humbled themselves; therefore I will not destroy them, but I will grant them some deliverance; and my wrath shall not be poured out upon Jerusalem by the hand of Shishak.

And the children of Israel said unto the LORD, We have sinned: do you unto us whatsoever seems good unto you; deliver us only, we pray you, this day. And they put away the foreign gods from among them, and served the LORD: and his soul was grieved for the misery of Israel.


And the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomits out its inhabitants.

So you shall not pollute the land in which you are: for blood defiles the land: and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, except by the blood of him that shed it. Defile not therefore the land which you shall inhabit, wherein I dwell: for I the LORD dwell among the children of Israel.


Defile not you yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you:

That the house of Israel may go no more astray from me, neither be defiled any more with all their transgressions; but that they may be my people, and I may be their God, says the Lord GOD.


Hear the word of the LORD, you rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? says the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of male goats. When you come to appear before me, who has required this at your hand, to trample my courts? read more.
Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot endure; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary of bearing them. And when you spread forth your hands, I will hide my eyes from you: yea, when you make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.

I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not take delight in your solemn assemblies. Though you offer me burnt offerings and your grain offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fatted beasts.


And when they entered unto the nations, where they went, they profaned my holy name, when they said to them, These are the people of the LORD, and have gone forth out of his land.

And I will sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in the midst of them; and the nations shall know that I am the LORD, says the Lord GOD, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes.


That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom you slew between the temple and the altar.

Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us, and on our children.


And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemned them by a catastrophe, making them an example unto those that later should live ungodly;

And Moses returned unto the LORD, and said, Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold.

Hear the word of the LORD, you children of Israel: for the LORD has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land: Because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break all restraint, and bloodshed touches bloodshed.

And Moses said, This shall be, when the LORD shall give you in the evening flesh to eat, and in the morning bread to the full; for the LORD hears your murmurings which you murmur against him: and what are we? your murmurings are not against us, but against the LORD.

And the LORD said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grave;

And walked in the statutes of the nations, whom the LORD cast out from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they had made. And the children of Israel did secretly those things that were not right against the LORD their God, and they built them high places in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fortified city. And they set them up images and idol poles on every high hill, and under every green tree: read more.
And there they burnt incense in all the high places, as did the nations which the LORD carried away before them; and did wicked things to provoke the LORD to anger: For they served idols, of which the LORD had said unto them, You shall not do this thing.

Also Judah kept not the commandments of the LORD their God, but walked in the statutes of Israel which they made.

Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD has spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knows his owner, and the donkey his master's crib: but Israel does not know, my people do not consider. Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a descendant of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they have turned away backward. read more.
Why should you be stricken any more? you will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither soothed with ointment. Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.


And the LORD said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that are done in its midst.

Rivers of waters run down my eyes, because they keep not your law.



O Israel, return unto the LORD your God; for you have fallen because of your iniquity. Take with you words, and turn to the LORD: say unto him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously: so will we offer the sacrifices of our lips.


So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.

If that nation, against whom I have spoken, turn from their evil, I will change from the evil that I thought to do unto them.





We have heard the pride of Moab, (he is exceedingly proud) his loftiness, and his arrogance, and his pride, and the haughtiness of his heart. I know his wrath, says the LORD; but it shall not be so; his lies shall not so effect it.


And Moses returned unto the LORD, and said, Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold. Yet now, if you will forgive their sin--; and if not, blot me, I pray you, out of your book which you have written.


Speak not you in your heart, after that the LORD your God has cast them out from before you, saying, For my righteousness the LORD has brought me in to possess this land: but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD does drive them out from before you.


But if they had stood in my counsel, and had caused my people to hear my words, then they should have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings.




Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyre, Thus says the Lord GOD; Because your heart is lifted up, and you have said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; yet you are a man, and not God, though you set your heart as the heart of God:




Therefore also now, says the LORD, turn you even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: