I have obeyed the law of the LORD; I have not turned away from my God.

I have not neglected your instructions, because you yourself are my teacher.

Get out of our way and stop blocking our path. We don't want to hear about your holy God of Israel."

We have rebelled against you, rejected you, and refused to follow you. We have oppressed others and turned away from you. Our thoughts are false; our words are lies.

The LORD says, "I will condemn those who turn away from me and put their trust in human beings, in the strength of mortals.

LORD, you are Israel's hope; all who abandon you will be put to shame. They will disappear like names written in the dust, because they have abandoned you, the LORD, the spring of fresh water.

The LORD said to me, "I am punishing those Levites who, together with the rest of the people of Israel, deserted me and worshiped idols.

"We have sinned, we have been evil, we have done wrong. We have rejected what you commanded us to do and have turned away from what you showed us was right.

We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our rulers, our ancestors, and our whole nation.

My friends, be careful that none of you have a heart so evil and unbelieving that you will turn away from the living God.

So I, in turn, will make the people of Israel despise you because you do not obey my will, and when you teach my people, you do not treat everyone alike."

This sin of the sons of Eli was extremely serious in the LORD's sight, because they treated the offerings to the LORD with such disrespect.

Stop it, my sons! This is an awful thing the people of the LORD are talking about!

I, the LORD God of Israel, promised in the past that your family and your clan would serve me as priests for all time. But now I say that I won't have it any longer! Instead, I will honor those who honor me, and I will treat with contempt those who despise me.

Those who lead these people have misled them and totally confused them.

Yet my people have forgotten me; they burn incense to idols. They have stumbled in the way they should go; they no longer follow the old ways; they walk on unmarked paths.

The LORD says, "The prophets and the priests are godless; I have caught them doing evil in the Temple itself.

I have seen the sin of Samaria's prophets: they have spoken in the name of Baal and have led my people astray.

"So then, this is what I, the LORD Almighty, say about the prophets of Jerusalem: I will give them bitter plants to eat and poison to drink, because they have spread ungodliness throughout the land."

"Why is it that your disciples disobey the teaching handed down by our ancestors? They don't wash their hands in the proper way before they eat!"

For God said, 'Respect your father and your mother,' and 'If you curse your father or your mother, you are to be put to death.'

One of the teachers of the Law said to him, "Teacher, when you say this, you insult us too!"

Jesus answered, "How terrible also for you teachers of the Law! You put onto people's backs loads which are hard to carry, but you yourselves will not stretch out a finger to help them carry those loads.

you are sure that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in darkness,

You teach others---why don't you teach yourself ? You preach, "Do not steal"---but do you yourself steal?

You boast about having God's law---but do you bring shame on God by breaking his law?

The right thing to do is to keep from eating meat, drinking wine, or doing anything else that will make other believers fall.

"In my covenant I promised them life and well-being, and this is what I gave them, so that they might respect me. In those days they did respect and fear me.

Don't we all have the same father? Didn't the same God create us all? Then why do we break our promises to one another, and why do we despise the covenant that God made with our ancestors?

Otherwise, his children, who ought to be holy, will be ritually unclean. I am the LORD and I have set him apart as the High Priest."

Remember, God, how those people defiled both the office of priest and the covenant you made with the priests and the Levites.