To like sin is to like making trouble. If you brag all the time, you are asking for trouble.

Don't build your house and establish a home until your fields are ready, and you are sure that you can earn a living.

You are doomed! You buy more houses and fields to add to those you already have. Soon there will be no place for anyone else to live, and you alone will live in the land.

I have heard the LORD Almighty say, "All these big, fine houses will be empty ruins.

All the people of Israel, everyone who lives in the city of Samaria, will know that he has done this. Now they are proud and arrogant. They say,

he said, "Look how great Babylon is! I built it as my capital city to display my power and might, my glory and majesty."

If Esau's descendants, the Edomites, say, "Our towns have been destroyed, but we will rebuild them," then the LORD will reply, "Let them rebuild---I will tear them down again. People will call them 'The evil country' and 'The nation with whom the LORD is angry forever.' "

If one of you is planning to build a tower, you sit down first and figure out what it will cost, to see if you have enough money to finish the job.

If you don't, you will not be able to finish the tower after laying the foundation; and all who see what happened will make fun of you.

Then the king said to the prophet Nathan, "Here I am living in a house built of cedar, but God's Covenant Box is kept in a tent!"

The main room was paneled with cedar and overlaid with fine gold, in which were worked designs of palm trees and chain patterns.

the cedars will be the beams of our house, and the cypress trees the ceiling.

"My people, why should you be living in well-built houses while my Temple lies in ruins?