You will remember how you have acted, and be ashamed of it when you get your older sister and your younger sister back. I will let them be like daughters to you, even though this was not part of my covenant with you.

You will remember your evil conduct and the wrongs that you committed, and you will be disgusted with yourselves because of your sins and your iniquities.

Israel, I want you to know that I am not doing all this for your sake. I want you to feel the shame and disgrace of what you are doing. I, the Sovereign LORD, have spoken."

I said, "O God, I am too ashamed to raise my head in your presence. Our sins pile up higher than our heads; they reach as high as the heavens.

You, Lord, always do what is right, but we have always brought disgrace on ourselves. This is true of all of us who live in Judea and in Jerusalem and of all the Israelites whom you scattered in countries near and far because they were unfaithful to you.

Our kings, our rulers, and our ancestors have acted shamefully and sinned against you, Lord.

(SEE 40:3)

I have already said more than I should.

I will keep quiet, I will not say a word, for you are the one who made me suffer like this.

Why should we ever complain when we are punished for our sin?

Do you, my friend, pass judgment on others? You have no excuse at all, whoever you are. For when you judge others and then do the same things which they do, you condemn yourself.

Now we know that everything in the Law applies to those who live under the Law, in order to stop all human excuses and bring the whole world under God's judgment.

What, then, can we boast about? Nothing! And what is the reason for this? Is it that we obey the Law? No, but that we believe.

But one of you will say to me, "If this is so, how can God find fault with anyone? Who can resist God's will?"

But who are you, my friend, to talk back to God? A clay pot does not ask the man who made it, "Why did you make me like this?"

Now that we have been put right with God through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

He has brought us by faith into this experience of God's grace, in which we now live. And so we boast of the hope we have of sharing God's glory!

Who made you superior to others? Didn't God give you everything you have? Well, then, how can you boast, as if what you have were not a gift?

Actually all of us were like them and lived according to our natural desires, doing whatever suited the wishes of our own bodies and minds. In our natural condition we, like everyone else, were destined to suffer God's anger.

that while we were spiritually dead in our disobedience he brought us to life with Christ. It is by God's grace that you have been saved.

For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, and wrong. We were slaves to passions and pleasures of all kinds. We spent our lives in malice and envy; others hated us and we hated them.

he saved us. It was not because of any good deeds that we ourselves had done, but because of his own mercy that he saved us, through the Holy Spirit, who gives us new birth and new life by washing us.

so that by his grace we might be put right with God and come into possession of the eternal life we hope for.