when your fathers tried Me; they examined Me and saw My work.

For forty years I was grieved with that generation, and said, It is a people who go astray in their hearts, and they have not known My ways.

My soul hates your new moons and your appointed feasts. They are a burden to Me; I am weary of bearing them.

And He said, Hear now, O house of David; is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will you weary my God also?

You have bought Me no sweet cane with money, nor have you filled Me with the fat of your sacrifices; but you have burdened Me with your sins; you have wearied Me with your iniquities.

You have forsaken Me, says Jehovah; you have gone backward; therefore I will stretch out My hand against you, and destroy you; I am weary with sorrow.

Because you did not remember the days of your youth, but agitated Me with all these things, surely I will also recompense your deeds upon your own head, says the Lord Jehovah. And you shall not commit licentiousness in addition to all your abominations.

Behold, I am pressed under you, as a cart full of sheaves is pressed.

Yet you say, For what reason? Because Jehovah has been witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt treacherously; and she is your companion and your wife by 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 Jehovah of Hosts to you, O priests who despise My name. But you say, In what way have we despised Your name?

You offer defiled food on My altar, and say, In what way have we defiled You? By saying, The table of Jehovah is to be held in contempt.

Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me. But you say, How have we robbed You? In the tithe and the offering.

Your words have been strong against Me, says Jehovah. Yet you say, What have we spoken against you?

And now we are calling the arrogant blessed. Those that work wickedness are built up; they even test God, and escape.

For Job has said, I am righteous, but the Mighty God has taken away my justice;

What man is like Job, who drinks up derision like water,

For he has said, It profits a man nothing when he is pleasing to God.

But you are filled with the judgment due the wicked; judgment and justice take hold of you.

For I was jealous of the boastful, when I saw the peace of the wicked.

They are not in trouble like other men; neither are they plagued like other men.

Their eyes bulge with fatness; they have more than the heart could imagine.

They set their mouth against the heavens, and their tongues walk through the earth.

And they say, How does the Mighty God know? and, Is there knowledge in the Most High?

Surely I have made my heart pure in vain, and washed my hands in innocence.

If I had said, I will speak thus; behold, I would have deceived a generation of Your sons.

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

The Son of Man comes eating and drinking, and they say, Behold, a glutton and a wino, a friend of tax collectors and sinners! But wisdom is justified by her children.

He is the Rock, His work is perfect; for all His ways are justice, a Mighty God of truth and without injustice; righteous and upright is He.

Talk no more so very proudly; let no arrogance come out of your mouth, for Jehovah is the Mighty God of knowledge; and by Him actions are weighed.

He has said in his heart, the Mighty God has forgotten; He hides His face; He will never see it!

Why have the wicked spurned God? He has said in his heart, You will not investigate.

Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.

Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin with cart ropes;

who say, Let Him hurry and hasten His work, so that we may see it; and let the purpose of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come, so that we may know it!

And so Jehovah waits to be gracious to you. And therefore He is exalted, that He may have mercy on you; for Jehovah is a God of justice. Blessed are all those who wait for Him.

Then He said to me, Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the room of his idols? For they say, Jehovah does not see us, Jehovah has forsaken the land.

Then He said to me, The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great, and the land is filled with blood, and the city is full of perversity; for they say, Jehovah has forsaken the land; and, Jehovah does not see!

And it shall come to pass at that time, that I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and punish the men who are curdled in their dregs; who say in their heart, Jehovah will not do good, nor will He do evil.

knowing this first: that scoffers 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 fell asleep, all things continue as they were since the beginning of creation.