'Sin' in the Bible

Then the Lord said to me, “Out of the north the evil [which the prophets foretold as the result of national sin] will reveal itself and spill out on all the people of the land.

“Now when you tell these people all these words and they ask you, ‘Why has the Lord decreed all this great tragedy against us? And what is our iniquity, what is the sin which we have committed against the Lord our God?’

I will first doubly repay and punish them for their wickedness and their sin [before I return them to their land], because they have profaned My land; they have filled My inheritance with the carcasses of their detestable idols and with their abominations.”

The sin of Judah is written down with an iron stylus;With a diamond point it is engraved upon the tablet of their heartAnd on the horns of their altars.

O [Jerusalem] My mountain in the countryside,I will give [to the Babylonians, as the cost of your sin] your wealth and all your treasures as plunder,And throughout your territory, your high places of sin.

Yet You, O Lord, knowAll their deadly plotting against me;Do not forgive their wickednessOr blot out their sin from Your sight.But let them be overthrown before You;Deal with them in the time of Your anger.

And each man will no longer teach his neighbor and his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me [through personal experience], from the least of them to the greatest,” says the Lord. “For I will forgive their wickedness, and I will no longer remember their sin.”

They built the high places [for worship] of Baal in the Valley of Ben-hinnom (son of Hinnom) to make their sons and their daughters pass through the fire to [worship and honor] Molech—which I had not commanded them nor had it entered My mind that they should do this repulsive thing, to cause Judah to sin.

It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the disaster which I plan to bring on them, so that each one will turn from his evil way, that I may forgive their wickedness and their sin.”

For that day belongs to the Lord God of hosts,A day of vengeance, that He may avenge Himself on His adversaries.And the sword will devour and be satiatedAnd drink its fill of their blood;For the Lord God of hosts has a sacrifice [like that of a great sin offering]In the north country by the river Euphrates.

“My people have become lost sheep;Their shepherds have led them astray.They have made them turn aside [to the seductive places of idolatry] on the mountains.They have gone along [from one sin to another] from mountain to hill;They have forgotten their [own] resting place.

Flee out of Babylon,Let every one of you save his life!Do not be destroyed in her punishment,For this is the time of the Lord’s vengeance;He is going to pay her what she has earned.