Thematic Bible: National Sins


Thematic Bible




by your great wisdom [and] by your traffic you have increased your riches, and your heart is lifted up because of your riches --

But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked. You have grown fat. You have grown thick. You have become sleek. 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 lees, and has not been emptied from vessel to vessel, neither has he gone into captivity: therefore his taste remains in him, and his scent is not changed.

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


Jeroboam said in his heart, "Now the kingdom will return to the house of David. If this people goes up to offer sacrifices in the house of Yahweh at Jerusalem, then the heart of this people will turn again to their lord, even to Rehoboam king of Judah; and they will kill me, and return to Rehoboam king of Judah." Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold; and he said to them, "It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Look and see your gods, Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt!" read more.
He set the one in Bethel, and the other put he in Dan. This thing became a sin; for the people went [to worship] before the one, even to Dan. He made houses of high places, and made priests from among all the people, who were not of the sons of Levi. Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like the feast that is in Judah, and he went up to the altar; so did he in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves that he had made: and he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places that he had made. He went up to the altar which he had made in Bethel on the fifteenth day in the eighth month, even in the month which he had devised of his own heart: and he ordained a feast for the children of Israel, and went up to the altar, to burn incense.

If a ruler listens to lies, all of his officials are wicked.

He will give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, which he has sinned, and with which he has made Israel to sin."

Moreover he made high places in the mountains of Judah, and made the inhabitants of Jerusalem to play the prostitute, and led Judah astray. A letter came to him from Elijah the prophet, saying, "Thus says Yahweh, the 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 prostitute, like the house of Ahab did, and also have slain your brothers of your father's house, who were better than yourself:


"Cry aloud, don't spare, lift up your voice like a trumpet, and declare to my people their disobedience, and to the house of Jacob their sins.

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

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

He said to me, Son of man, I send you to the children of Israel, to a nation of rebels who have rebelled against me. They and their fathers have transgressed against me even to this very day. The children are impudent and stiff-hearted: I am sending you to them; and you shall tell them, Thus says the Lord Yahweh. They, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear, (for they are a rebellious house), yet shall know that there has been a prophet among them.

You, son of man, will you judge, will you judge the bloody city? then cause her to know all her abominations.


and shall return to Yahweh 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;

The children of Israel cried to Yahweh, saying, "We have sinned against you, even because we have forsaken our God, and have served the Baals."

"'If they confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, in their trespass which they trespassed against me, and also that, because they walked contrary to me,

yet if they shall repent in the land where they are carried captive, and turn again, and make supplication to you in the land of those who carried them captive, saying, 'We have sinned, and have done perversely; we have dealt wickedly;' if they return to you with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their enemies, who carried them captive, and pray to you toward their land, which you gave to their fathers, the city which you have chosen, and the house which I have built for your name:


It shall happen, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, says Yahweh, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans; and I will make it desolate forever.

But if they will not hear, then will I pluck up that nation, plucking up and destroying it, says Yahweh.

For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen; because their tongue and their doings are against Yahweh, to provoke the eyes of his glory.

therefore, behold, I will bring strangers on 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 death of those who are slain, in the heart of the seas. Will you yet say before him who kills you, I am God? but you are man, and not God, in the hand of him who wounds you. read more.
You shall die the death of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers: for I have spoken it, says the Lord Yahweh.



Therefore the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, the Mighty One of Israel, says: "Ah, I will get relief from my adversaries, and avenge myself of my enemies;

Shouldn't I punish them for these things?" says Yahweh; "and shouldn't my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?

"I have made you a tester of metals [and] a fortress among my people; that you may know and try their way. They are all grievous rebels, going about with slanders; they are brass and iron: they all of them deal corruptly. The bellows blow fiercely; the lead is consumed of the fire: in vain do they go on refining; for the wicked are not plucked away. read more.
Men will call them rejected silver, because Yahweh has rejected them."


Let the priests, the ministers of Yahweh, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, "Spare your people, Yahweh, and don't give your heritage to reproach, that the nations should rule over them. Why should they say among the peoples, 'Where is their God?'"

Thus says the Lord Yahweh: Strike with your hand, and stamp with your foot, and say, Alas! because of 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 Yahweh's flock is taken captive.

It came to pass, when he commanded the man clothed in linen, saying, Take fire from between the whirling wheels, from between the cherubim, that he went in, and stood beside a wheel.


Thus says Yahweh: "For three transgressions of Judah, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because they have rejected Yahweh's law, and have not kept his statutes, and their lies have led them astray, after which their fathers walked;

What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? Why, when I looked for it to yield grapes, did it yield wild grapes? Now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take away its hedge, and it will be eaten up. I will break down its wall of it, and it will be trampled down. I will lay it a wasteland. It won't be pruned nor hoed, but it will grow briers and thorns. I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain on it." read more.
For the vineyard of Yahweh of Armies 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 of distress.

I gave them my statutes, and showed them my ordinances, which if a man does, he shall live in them. Moreover also I gave them my Sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am Yahweh who sanctifies them. But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness: they didn't walk in my statutes, and they rejected my ordinances, which if a man keep, he shall live in them; and my Sabbaths they greatly profaned. Then I said I would pour out my wrath on them in the wilderness, to consume them.

Hear this word that Yahweh has spoken against you, children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up out of the land of Egypt, saying: "You only have I chosen of all the families of the earth. Therefore I will punish you for all of your sins."


Hear, earth! Behold, I will bring evil on this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not listened to my words; and as for my law, they have rejected it.

Hear the word of Yahweh, you rulers of Sodom! Listen to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah! "What are the multitude of your sacrifices to me?," says Yahweh. "I have had enough of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed animals. I don't delight in the blood of bulls, 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 to me; new moons, Sabbaths, and convocations: I can't bear with evil assemblies. My soul hates your New Moons and your appointed feasts. They are a burden to me. I am weary of bearing them.

Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods that you have not known, and come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered; that you may do all these abominations? Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I, even I, have seen it, says Yahweh. read more.
But go now to my place which was in Shiloh, where I caused my name to dwell at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel. Now, because you have done all these works, says Yahweh, and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you didn't hear; and I called you, but you didn't answer: therefore will I do to the house which is called by my name, in which you trust, and to the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh.


Behold, the days come," says the Lord Yahweh, "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 Yahweh.

Her gates are sunk into the ground; he has destroyed and broken her bars: Her king and her princes are among the nations where the law is not; Yes, her prophets find no vision from Yahweh.

"Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets, and stones those who are sent to her! How often I would have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not! Behold, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me from now on, until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!'"


Why should you be beaten more, that you revolt more and more? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.

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

"Run back and forth through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places of it, if you can find a man, if there are any who does justly, who seeks truth; and I will pardon her. Though they say, 'As Yahweh lives;' surely they swear falsely." O Yahweh, don't your eyes look on truth? You have stricken them, but they were 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.
Then I said, "Surely these are poor. They are foolish; for they don't know the way of Yahweh, nor the law of their God. I will go to the great men, and will speak to them; for they know the way of Yahweh, and the law of their God." But these with one accord have broken the yoke, and burst the bonds.


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

The children of Israel said to Yahweh, "We have sinned: do you to us whatever seems good to you; only deliver us, please, this day." They put away the foreign gods from among them, and served Yahweh; and his soul was grieved for the misery of Israel.


The land was defiled: therefore I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out her inhabitants.

"'So you shall not pollute the land in which you are: for blood, it pollutes the land; and no expiation can be made for the land for the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him who shed it. You shall not defile the land which you inhabit, in the midst of which I dwell: for I, Yahweh, dwell in the midst of the children of Israel.'"


"'Don't defile yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations which I am casting out before you were defiled.

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


Hear the word of Yahweh, you rulers of Sodom! Listen to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah! "What are the multitude of your sacrifices to me?," says Yahweh. "I have had enough of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed animals. I don't delight in the blood of bulls, 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 to me; new moons, Sabbaths, and convocations: I can't bear with evil assemblies. My soul hates your New Moons and your appointed feasts. They are a burden to me. I am weary of bearing them. When you spread forth your hands, I will hide my eyes from you. Yes, when you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood.

I hate, I despise your feasts, and I can't stand your solemn assemblies. Yes, though you offer me your burnt offerings and meal offerings, I will not accept them; neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat animals.


When they came to the nations, where they went, they profaned my holy name; in that men said of them, These are the people of Yahweh, and are gone forth out of his land.

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


that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom you killed between the sanctuary and the altar.



and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly;

Moses returned to Yahweh, and said, "Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made themselves gods of gold.

Hear the word of Yahweh, you children of Israel; for Yahweh has a charge against the inhabitants of the land: "Indeed there is no truth, nor goodness, nor knowledge of God in the land. There is cursing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery; they break boundaries, and bloodshed causes bloodshed.

Moses said, "Now Yahweh shall give you meat to eat in the evening, and in the morning bread to satisfy you; because Yahweh hears your murmurings which you murmur against him. And who are we? Your murmurings are not against us, but against Yahweh."

Yahweh said, "Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous,

and walked in the statutes of the nations, whom Yahweh cast out from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they made. The children of Israel did secretly things that were not right against Yahweh 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 pillars and Asherim 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 whom Yahweh carried away before them; and they worked wicked things to provoke Yahweh to anger; and they served idols, of which Yahweh had said to them, "You shall not do this thing."

Also Judah didn't keep the commandments of Yahweh their God, but walked in the statutes of Israel which they made.

Hear, heavens, and listen, earth; for Yahweh 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 doesn't know, my people don't consider." Ah sinful nation, a people loaded with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken Yahweh. They have despised the Holy One of Israel. They are estranged and backward. read more.
Why should you be beaten more, that you revolt more and more? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even to the head there is no soundness in it: wounds, welts, and open sores. They haven't been closed, neither bandaged, neither soothed with oil. Your country is desolate. Your cities are burned with fire. Strangers devour your land in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.


Yahweh said to him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark on the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry over all the abominations that are done in its midst.

Streams of tears run down my eyes, because they don't observe your law. TZADI



Israel, return to Yahweh your God; for you have fallen because of your sin. Take words with you, and return to Yahweh. Tell him, "Forgive all our sins, and accept that which is good: so we offer our lips like bulls.


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

if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do to them.





We have heard of the pride of Moab, [that] he is very proud; his loftiness, and his pride, and his arrogance, and the haughtiness of his heart. I know his wrath, says Yahweh, that it is nothing; his boastings have worked nothing.


Moses returned to Yahweh, and said, "Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made themselves gods of gold. Yet now, if you will, forgive their sin -- and if not, please blot me out of your book which you have written."


Don't say in your heart, after Yahweh your God has thrust them out from before you, saying, "For my righteousness Yahweh has brought me in to possess this land;" because Yahweh drives them out before you because of the wickedness of these nations.


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




Son of man, tell the prince of Tyre, Thus says the Lord Yahweh: 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 man, and not God, though you did set your heart as the heart of God --