"I will abandon my people until they have suffered enough for their sins and come looking for me. Perhaps in their suffering they will try to find me."

"They are doomed! They have left me and rebelled against me. They will be destroyed. I wanted to save them, but their worship of me was false.

They have not prayed to me sincerely, but instead they throw themselves down and wail as the heathen do. When they pray for grain and wine, they gash themselves like pagans. What rebels they are!

saying, "Come with me and see for yourself how devoted I am to the LORD." And they rode on together to Samaria.

But he imitated the sin of King Jeroboam, who led Israel into the sin of worshiping the gold bull-calves he set up in Bethel and in Dan.

Whenever he killed some of them, the rest would turn to him; they would repent and pray earnestly to him.

But their words were all lies; nothing they said was sincere.

Listen to this, people of Israel, you that are descended from Judah: You swear by the name of the LORD and claim to worship the God of Israel--- but you don't mean a word you say.

And yet you are proud to say that you are citizens of the holy city and that you depend on Israel's God, whose name is the LORD Almighty.

Stop believing those deceitful words, 'We are safe! This is the LORD's Temple, this is the LORD's Temple, this is the LORD's Temple!'

The city's rulers govern for bribes, the priests interpret the Law for pay, the prophets give their revelations for money---and they all claim that the LORD is with them. "No harm will come to us," they say. "The LORD is with us."

"Not everyone who calls me 'Lord, Lord' will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but only those who do what my Father in heaven wants them to do.

"Later the others arrived. 'Sir, sir! Let us in!' they cried out.

The master of the house will get up and close the door; then when you stand outside and begin to knock on the door and say, 'Open the door for us, sir!' he will answer you, 'I don't know where you come from!'

They claim that they know God, but their actions deny it. They are hateful and disobedient, not fit to do anything good.

If we say that we know him, but do not obey his commands, we are liars and there is no truth in us.