'Ways' in the Bible

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord.

“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,So are My ways higher than your waysAnd My thoughts than your thoughts.

“I have seen his ways, but I will heal him;I will lead him and restore comfort to him and to his mourners,

“Yet they seek Me day by day and delight to know My ways,As a nation that has done righteousnessAnd has not forsaken the ordinance of their God.They ask Me for just decisions,They delight in the nearness of God.

“If because of the sabbath, you turn your footFrom doing your own pleasure on My holy day,And call the sabbath a delight, the holy day of the Lord honorable,And honor it, desisting from your own ways,From seeking your own pleasureAnd speaking your own word,

Why, O Lord, do You cause us to stray from Your waysAnd harden our heart from fearing You?Return for the sake of Your servants, the tribes of Your heritage.

You meet him who rejoices in doing righteousness,Who remembers You in Your ways.Behold, You were angry, for we sinned,We continued in them a long time;And shall we be saved?

“But he who kills an ox is like one who slays a man;He who sacrifices a lamb is like the one who breaks a dog’s neck;He who offers a grain offering is like one who offers swine’s blood;He who burns incense is like the one who blesses an idol.As they have chosen their own ways,And their soul delights in their abominations,

“How can you say, ‘I am not defiled,I have not gone after the Baals’?Look at your way in the valley!Know what you have done!You are a swift young camel entangling her ways,

“How well you prepare your wayTo seek love!Therefore even the wicked womenYou have taught your ways.

“Your ways and your deedsHave brought these things to you.This is your evil. How bitter!How it has touched your heart!”

Thus says the Lord,“Stand by the ways and see and ask for the ancient paths,Where the good way is, and walk in it;And you will find rest for your souls.But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’

Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, “Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place.

For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly practice justice between a man and his neighbor,

Then if they will really learn the ways of My people, to swear by My name, ‘As the Lord lives,’ even as they taught My people to swear by Baal, they will be built up in the midst of My people.

“I will winnow them with a winnowing forkAt the gates of the land;I will bereave them of children, I will destroy My people;They did not repent of their ways.

For My eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from My face, nor is their iniquity concealed from My eyes.

“I, the Lord, search the heart,I test the mind,Even to give to each man according to his ways,According to the results of his deeds.

So now then, speak to the men of Judah and against the inhabitants of Jerusalem saying, ‘Thus says the Lord, “Behold, I am fashioning calamity against you and devising a plan against you. Oh turn back, each of you from his evil way, and reform your ways and your deeds.”’

‘For My people have forgotten Me,They burn incense to worthless godsAnd they have stumbled from their ways,From the ancient paths,To walk in bypaths,Not on a highway,

Now therefore amend your ways and your deeds and obey the voice of the Lord your God; and the Lord will change His mind about the misfortune which He has pronounced against you.

great in counsel and mighty in deed, whose eyes are open to all the ways of the sons of men, giving to everyone according to his ways and according to the fruit of his deeds;

He has blocked my ways with hewn stone;He has made my paths crooked.

He has turned aside my ways and torn me to pieces;He has made me desolate.

Let us examine and probe our ways,And let us return to the Lord.

Now the end is upon you, and I will send My anger against you; I will judge you according to your ways and bring all your abominations upon you.

For My eye will have no pity on you, nor will I spare you, but I will bring your ways upon you, and your abominations will be among you; then you will know that I am the Lord!’

Now I will shortly pour out My wrath on you and spend My anger against you; judge you according to your ways and bring on you all your abominations.

My eye will show no pity nor will I spare. I will repay you according to your ways, while your abominations are in your midst; then you will know that I, the Lord, do the smiting.

Yet you have not merely walked in their ways or done according to their abominations; but, as if that were too little, you acted more corruptly in all your conduct than they.

Then you will remember your ways and be ashamed when you receive your sisters, both your older and your younger; and I will give them to you as daughters, but not because of your covenant.

Do I have any pleasure in the death of the wicked,” declares the Lord God, “rather than that he should turn from his ways and live?

Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not right.’ Hear now, O house of Israel! Is My way not right? Is it not your ways that are not right?

But the house of Israel says, ‘The way of the Lord is not right.’ Are My ways not right, O house of Israel? Is it not your ways that are not right?

There you will remember your ways and all your deeds with which you have defiled yourselves; and you will loathe yourselves in your own sight for all the evil things that you have done.

Then you will know that I am the Lord when I have dealt with you for My name’s sake, not according to your evil ways or according to your corrupt deeds, O house of Israel,” declares the Lord God.’”

“As for you, son of man, make two ways for the sword of the king of Babylon to come; both of them will go out of one land. And make a signpost; make it at the head of the way to the city.

For the king of Babylon stands at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination; he shakes the arrows, he consults the household idols, he looks at the liver.

I, the Lord, have spoken; it is coming and I will act. I will not relent, and I will not pity and I will not be sorry; according to your ways and according to your deeds I will judge you,” declares the Lord God.’”

“You were blameless in your waysFrom the day you were createdUntil unrighteousness was found in you.

Say to them, ‘As I live!’ declares the Lord God, ‘I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! Why then will you die, O house of Israel?’

Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not right.’ O house of Israel, I will judge each of you according to his ways.”

“Son of man, when the house of Israel was living in their own land, they defiled it by their ways and their deeds; their way before Me was like the uncleanness of a woman in her impurity.

Also I scattered them among the nations and they were dispersed throughout the lands. According to their ways and their deeds I judged them.

Then you will remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good, and you will loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and your abominations.

I am not doing this for your sake,” declares the Lord God, “let it be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel!”

Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise, exalt and honor the King of heaven, for all His works are true and His ways just, and He is able to humble those who walk in pride.”

but you have exalted yourself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of His house before you, and you and your nobles, your wives and your concubines have been drinking wine from them; and you have praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood and stone, which do not see, hear or understand. But the God in whose hand are your life-breath and all your ways, you have not glorified.

And it will be, like people, like priest;So I will punish them for their waysAnd repay them for their deeds.

Ephraim was a watchman with my God, a prophet;Yet the snare of a bird catcher is in all his ways,And there is only hostility in the house of his God.

The Lord also has a dispute with Judah,And will punish Jacob according to his ways;He will repay him according to his deeds.

Whoever is wise, let him understand these things;Whoever is discerning, let him know them.For the ways of the Lord are right,And the righteous will walk in them,But transgressors will stumble in them.

Many nations will come and say,“Come and let us go up to the mountain of the LordAnd to the house of the God of Jacob,That He may teach us about His waysAnd that we may walk in His paths.”For from Zion will go forth the law,Even the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

He stood and surveyed the earth;He looked and startled the nations.Yes, the perpetual mountains were shattered,The ancient hills collapsed.His ways are everlasting.

Now therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, “Consider your ways!

Thus says the Lord of hosts, “Consider your ways!

“Do not be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets proclaimed, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, “Return now from your evil ways and from your evil deeds.”’ But they did not listen or give heed to Me,” declares the Lord.

But did not My words and My statutes, which I commanded My servants the prophets, overtake your fathers? Then they repented and said, ‘As the Lord of hosts purposed to do to us in accordance with our ways and our deeds, so He has dealt with us.’”’”

“Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘If you will walk in My ways and if you will perform My service, then you will also govern My house and also have charge of My courts, and I will grant you free access among these who are standing here.

“So I also have made you despised and abased before all the people, just as you are not keeping My ways but are showing partiality in the instruction.

“And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;For you will go on before the Lord to prepare His ways;

Go; behold, I send you out as lambs in the midst of wolves.

‘You have made known to me the ways of life;You will make me full of gladness with Your presence.’

For you first, God raised up His Servant and sent Him to bless you by turning every one of you from your wicked ways.”

and said, “You who are full of all deceit and fraud, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease to make crooked the straight ways of the Lord?

In the generations gone by He permitted all the nations to go their own ways;

Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!

For this reason I have sent to you Timothy, who is my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, and he will remind you of my ways which are in Christ, just as I teach everywhere in every church.

God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways,

“Therefore I was angry with this generation,And said, ‘They always go astray in their heart,And they did not know My ways’;

being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

For we all stumble in many ways. If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body as well.

And they *sang the song of Moses, the bond-servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying,“Great and marvelous are Your works,O Lord God, the Almighty;Righteous and true are Your ways,King of the nations!