where your fathers tested Me, and tried Me, and saw My works.

Forty years was I grieved with this generation, and said, They do always err in their heart, and they have not known My ways.

[your] fasting, and rest from work, your new moons also, and your feasts My soul hates; you have become loathsome to Me; I will no more pardon your sins.

And he said, Hear now, O house of David; is it a little thing for you to contend with men? And how do you contend against the Lord?

Neither have you purchased for Me victims for silver, neither have I desired the fat of your sacrifices; but you stood before Me in your sins, and in your iniquities.

You have turned away from Me, says the Lord, you will go back. Therefore I will stretch out My hand, and I will destroy you, and will spare them no more.

Because you did not remember the days of your youth, and you grieved Me in all these things; therefore, behold, I have recompensed your ways upon your head, says the Lord; for thus have you wrought ungodliness above all your [other] iniquities.

Therefore behold, I roll under you, as a wagon full of straw is rolled.

Yet you said, For what reason? Because the Lord has borne witness between you and the wife of your youth, whom you have forsaken, and yet she was your partner, and the wife of your covenant.

A son honors [his] father, and a servant his master: if then I am a Father, where is My honor? And if I am a Master, where is My fear? Says the Lord Almighty. You the priests are they that despise My name: yet you said, In what way have we despised Your name?

In that you bring to My altar polluted bread; and you said, In what way have we polluted it? In that you say, The table of the Lord is polluted, and that which was set on it you have despised.

Will a man insult God? For you insult Me. But you say, How have we insulted You? In that the tithes and firstfruits are with you [still].

You have spoken grievous words against Me, says the Lord. Yet you said, In what way have we spoken against You?

And now we pronounce strangers blessed; and all they who act unlawfully are built up; and they have resisted God, and yet have been delivered.

For Job has said, I am righteous: the Lord has removed my judgment.

What man is like Job, drinking scorning like water?

For you should not say, There shall be no visitation of a man, whereas [there is] a visitation on him from the Lord.

[there is] a deep gulf and a rushing stream beneath it, and your table came down full of fatness. Judgment shall not fail from the righteous,

For I was jealous of the transgressors, beholding the tranquility of sinners.

They are not in the troubles of [other] men; and they shall not be scourged with [other] men.

Their injustice shall go forth as out of fatness; they have fulfilled their intention.

They have set their mouth against heaven, and their tongue has gone through upon the earth.

And they said, How does God know? And is there knowledge in the Most High?

And I said, Verily in vain have I justified my heart, and washed my hands in innocence.

If I said, I will speak thus; behold, I [should] have broken covenant with the generation of Your children.

"For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, 'He has a demon.'

"The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!' And so wisdom is justified by her children."

[As for God], His works [are] true, and all His ways [are] judgment: God [is] faithful, and there is no unrighteousness [in Him]; just and holy [is] the Lord.

Boast not, and utter not high things; let not high sounding words come out of your mouth, for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and God prepares His own designs.

For he has said in his heart, God has forgotten; He has turned away His face so as never to look.

Why has the wicked provoked God? For he has said in his heart, He will not require [it].

Because there is no contradiction made on the part of those who are quick to do evil, therefore the heart of the children of men is fully determined in them to do evil.

Woe [to them] that draw sins to them as with a long rope, and iniquities as with a thong of the heifer's yoke;

who say, Let him speedily hasten what he will do, that we may see [it]; and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel come, that we may know [it].

And the Lord will again wait, that He may pity you, and will therefore be exalted that He may have mercy upon you; because the Lord your God is a Judge; blessed are they that wait on Him.

And He said to me, You have seen, son of man, what the elders of the house of Israel do, each one of them in their secret chamber; because they have said, The Lord does not see; the Lord has forsaken the earth.

Then He said to me, The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah has become exceedingly great: for the land is filled with many nations, and the city is filled with iniquity and uncleanness; because they have said, The Lord has forsaken the earth, The Lord looks not upon [it].

And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will search Jerusalem with a lamp, and I will take vengeance on the men that despise the things committed to them; but they say in their hearts, The Lord will not do any good, neither will He do any evil.

knowing this first: that mockers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts,

and saying, "Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers died, all things continue as from the beginning of creation."