" If you should say in your heart, 'These nations are greater than I; how can I dispossess them?' --

"then you say in your heart, 'My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.'

"And if you say in your heart, 'How shall we know the word which the LORD has not spoken?' --

" Therefore hear this now, [you who are] given to pleasures, Who dwell securely, Who say in your heart, 'I [am,] and [there is] no one else besides me; I shall not sit [as] a widow, Nor shall I know the loss of children';

"And it shall come to pass at that time [That] I will search Jerusalem with lamps, And punish the men Who are settled in complacency, Who say in their heart, 'The LORD will not do good, Nor will He do evil.'

And the scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, "Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?"

But when Jesus perceived their thoughts, He answered and said to them, "Why are you reasoning in your hearts?

"And it will be when you say, 'Why does the LORD our God do all these [things] to us?' then you shall answer them, 'Just as you have forsaken Me and served foreign gods in your land, so you shall serve aliens in a land [that is] not yours.'

" And it shall be, when you show this people all these words, and they say to you, 'Why has the LORD pronounced all this great disaster against us? Or what [is] our iniquity? Or what [is] our sin that we have committed against the LORD our God?'

"then you shall say to them, 'Because your fathers have forsaken Me,' says the LORD; 'they have walked after other gods and have served them and worshiped them, and have forsaken Me and not kept My law.

Have you not brought this on yourself, In that you have forsaken the LORD your God When He led you in the way?

Your own wickedness will correct you, And your backslidings will rebuke you. Know therefore and see that [it is] an evil and bitter [thing] That you have forsaken the LORD your God, And the fear of Me [is] not in you," Says the Lord GOD of hosts.

Oh, that I had in the wilderness A lodging place for travelers; That I might leave my people, And go from them! For they [are] all adulterers, An assembly of treacherous men.

"Everyone take heed to his neighbor, And do not trust any brother; For every brother will utterly supplant, And every neighbor will walk with slanderers.

Your dwelling place [is] in the midst of deceit; Through deceit they refuse to know Me," says the LORD.

Their tongue [is] an arrow shot out; It speaks deceit; [One] speaks peaceably to his neighbor with his mouth, But in his heart he lies in wait.

And Ephraim said, 'Surely I have become rich, I have found wealth for myself; [In] all my labors They shall find in me no iniquity that [is] sin.'

Therefore I will uncover your skirts over your face, That your shame may appear.

Therefore the Lord will strike with a scab The crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, And the LORD will uncover their secret parts."

"so shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians as prisoners and the Ethiopians as captives, young and old, naked and barefoot, with their buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.

Take the millstones and grind meal. Remove your veil, Take off the skirt, Uncover the thigh, Pass through the rivers.

Your nakedness shall be uncovered, Yes, your shame will be seen; I will take vengeance, And I will not arbitrate with a man."

Jerusalem has sinned gravely, Therefore she has become vile. All who honored her despise her Because they have seen her nakedness; Yes, she sighs and turns away.

"surely, therefore, I will gather all your lovers with whom you took pleasure, all those you loved, [and] all those you hated; I will gather them from all around against you and will uncover your nakedness to them, that they may see all your nakedness.

"I will also give you into their hand, and they shall throw down your shrines and break down your high places. They shall also strip you of your clothes, take your beautiful jewelry, and leave you naked and bare.

'Thus I will make you cease your lewdness and your harlotry [Brought] from the land of Egypt, So that you will not lift your eyes to them, Nor remember Egypt anymore.'

'They will deal hatefully with you, take away all you have worked for, and leave you naked and bare. The nakedness of your harlotry shall be uncovered, both your lewdness and your harlotry.

Lest I strip her naked And expose her, as in the day she was born, And make her like a wilderness, And set her like a dry land, And slay her with thirst.

Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, And no one shall deliver her from My hand.

" Behold, I [am] against you," says the LORD of hosts; "I will lift your skirts over your face, I will show the nations your nakedness, And the kingdoms your shame.