I will cut off your food supply, so that ten women will need only one oven to bake all the bread they have. They will ration it out, and when you have eaten it all, you will still be hungry.

The righteous have enough to eat, but the wicked are always hungry.

And so I tell you that those who worship and obey me will have plenty to eat and drink, but you will be hungry and thirsty. They will be happy, but you will be disgraced.

My chosen people will use your name as a curse. I, the Sovereign LORD, will put you to death. But I will give a new name to those who obey me.

You will eat, but not be satisfied---in fact you will still be hungry. You will carry things off, but you will not be able to save them; anything you do save I will destroy in war.

You have planted much grain, but have harvested very little. You have food to eat, but not enough to make you full. You have wine to drink, but not enough to get drunk on! You have clothing, but not enough to keep you warm. And workers cannot earn enough to live on.

The LORD Almighty says to the priests, "This command is for you:

I will punish your children and rub your faces in the dung of the animals you sacrifice---and you will be taken out to the dung heap.

Yet I will not punish them for this, because you yourselves go off with temple prostitutes, and together with them you offer pagan sacrifices. As the proverb says, 'A people without sense will be ruined.'

Israel's greatness will fly away like a bird, and there will be no more children born to them, no more women pregnant, no more children conceived.

LORD, I can see their children being hunted down and killed.

The LORD says, "All their evildoing began in Gilgal. It was there that I began to hate them. And because of the evil they have done, I will drive them out of my land. I will not love them any more; all their leaders have rebelled against me.

The God I serve will reject his people, because they have not listened to him. They will become wanderers among the nations.

But once Jehoiada was dead, the leaders of Judah persuaded King Joash to listen to them instead.

Their speech is wicked and full of lies; they no longer do what is wise and good.

But when you punish the wicked, punish also those who abandon your ways. Peace be with Israel!

Just a few days ago you changed your minds and did what pleased me. All of you agreed to set all Israelites free, and you made a covenant in my presence, in the Temple where I am worshiped.

"But if a righteous person stops doing good and starts doing all the evil, disgusting things that evil people do, will he go on living? No! None of the good he did will be remembered. He will die because of his unfaithfulness and his sins.

I will destroy those who have turned back and no longer follow me, those who do not come to me or ask me to guide them."

If people have escaped from the corrupting forces of the world through their knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and then are again caught and conquered by them, such people are in worse condition at the end than they were at the beginning.

What happened to them shows that the proverbs are true: "A dog goes back to what it has vomited" and "A pig that has been washed goes back to roll in the mud."