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42 “‘Then at last my fury against you will die away; my jealousy against you will end, and I will be quiet and not be angry with you anymore. 43 But first, because you have not remembered your youth but have angered me by all these evil things you do, I will fully repay you for all of your sins,’” says the Lord. “‘For you are thankless in addition to all your other faults.
44 “‘“Like mother, like daughter”—that is what everyone will say of you. 45 For your mother loathed her husband and her children, and you do too. And you are exactly like your sisters, for they despised their husbands and their children. Truly, your mother must have been a Hittite and your father an Amorite.
46 “‘Your older sister is Samaria, living with her daughters north of you; your younger sister is Sodom and her daughters, in the south. 47 You have not merely sinned as they do—no, that was nothing to you; in a very short time you far surpassed them.
48 “‘As I live, the Lord God says, Sodom and her daughters have never been as wicked as you and your daughters. 49 Your sister Sodom’s sins were pride, laziness, and too much food, while the poor and needy suffered outside her door. 50 She insolently worshiped many idols as I watched. Therefore I crushed her.
51 “‘Even Samaria has not committed half your sins. You have worshiped idols far more than your sisters have; they seem almost righteous in comparison with you! 52 Don’t be surprised then by the lighter punishment they get. For your sins are so awful that in comparison with you, your sisters seem innocent! 53 (But someday I will restore the fortunes of Sodom and Samaria again, and those of Judah too.) 54 Your terrible punishment will be a consolation to them, for it will be greater than theirs.
55 “‘Yes, your sisters, Sodom and Samaria, and all their people will be restored again, and Judah, too, will prosper in that day. 56 In your proud days you held Sodom in unspeakable contempt. 57 But now your greater wickedness has been exposed to all the world, and you are the one who is scorned—by Edom and all her neighbors and by all the Philistines. 58 This is part of your punishment for all your sins,’” says the Lord.
59-60 For the Lord God says: “I will repay you for your broken promises. You lightly broke your solemn vows to me, yet I will keep the pledge I made to you when you were young. I will establish an everlasting covenant with you forever, 61 and you will remember with shame all the evil you have done; and you will be overcome by my favor when I take your sisters, Samaria and Sodom, and make them your daughters, for you to rule over. You will know you don’t deserve this gracious act, for you did not keep my covenant. 62 I will reaffirm my covenant with you, and you will know I am the Lord. 63 Despite all you have done, I will be kind to you again; you will cover your mouth in silence and in shame when I forgive you all that you have done,” says the Lord God.
17 Then this message came to me from the Lord:
2 “Son of dust, give this riddle to the people of Israel:
3-4 “A great eagle with broad wings full of many-colored feathers came to Lebanon and plucked off the shoot at the top of the tallest cedar tree and carried it into a city filled with merchants. 5 There he planted it[a] in fertile ground beside a broad river, where it would grow as quickly as a willow tree. 6 It took root and grew and became a low but spreading vine that turned toward the eagle and produced strong branches and luxuriant leaves. 7 But when another great, broad-winged, full-feathered eagle came along, this tree sent its roots and branches out toward him instead, 8 even though it was already in good soil with plenty of water to become a splendid vine, producing leaves and fruit.”
9 The Lord God asks: “Shall I let this tree grow and prosper? No! I will pull it out, roots and all! I will cut off its branches and let its leaves wither and die. It will pull out easily enough—it won’t take a big crew or a lot of equipment to do that. 10 Though the vine began so well, will it thrive? No, it will wither away completely when the east wind touches it, dying in the same choice soil where it had grown so well.”
11 Then this message came to me from the Lord:
12-13 “Ask these rebels of Israel: Don’t you understand what this riddle of the eagles means? I will tell you. Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon (the first of the two eagles),[b] came to Jerusalem, took away her king and princes (her topmost buds and shoots), and brought them to Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar made a covenant with a member of the royal family (Zedekiah), and made him take an oath of loyalty. He took a seedling and planted it in fertile ground beside a broad river. He also exiled the top men of Israel’s government, 14 so that Israel would not be strong again and revolt. But by keeping her promises, Israel could be respected and maintain her identity.
15 “Nevertheless, Zedekiah rebelled against Babylon, sending ambassadors to Egypt to seek for a great army and many horses to fight against Nebuchadnezzar. But will Israel prosper after breaking all her promises like that? Will she succeed? 16 No! For as I live,” says the Lord, “the king of Israel shall die. (Nebuchadnezzar will pull out the tree, roots and all!) Zedekiah shall die in Babylon, where the king lives who gave him his power, and whose covenant he despised and broke. 17 Pharaoh and all his mighty army shall fail to help Israel when the king of Babylon lays siege to Jerusalem again and slaughters many lives. 18 For the king of Israel broke his promise after swearing to obey; therefore he shall not escape.”
19 The Lord God says: “As I live, surely I will punish him for despising the solemn oath he made in my name. 20 I will throw my net over him, and he shall be captured in my snare; I will bring him to Babylon and deal with him there for this treason against me. 21 And all the best soldiers of Israel will be killed by the sword, and those remaining in the city will be scattered to the four winds. Then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken these words.”
22-23 The Lord God says: “I will take a tender sprout from the top of a tall cedar, and I will plant it on the top of Israel’s highest mountain. It shall become a noble cedar, bringing forth branches and bearing seed. Animals of every sort will gather under it; its branches will shelter every kind of bird. 24 And everyone shall know that it is I, the Lord, who cuts down the high trees and exalts the low, that I make the green tree wither and the dead tree grow. I, the Lord, have said that I would do it, and I will.”
8 What we are saying is this: Christ, whose priesthood we have just described, is our High Priest and is in heaven at the place of greatest honor next to God himself. 2 He ministers in the temple in heaven, the true place of worship built by the Lord and not by human hands.
3 And since every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices, Christ must make an offering too. 4 The sacrifice he offers is far better than those offered by the earthly priests. (But even so, if he were here on earth he wouldn’t even be permitted to be a priest because down here the priests still follow the old Jewish system of sacrifices.) 5 Their work is connected with a mere earthly model of the real tabernacle in heaven; for when Moses was getting ready to build the tabernacle, God warned him to follow exactly the pattern of the heavenly tabernacle as shown to him on Mount Sinai. 6 But Christ, as a Minister in heaven, has been rewarded with a far more important work than those who serve under the old laws because the new agreement that he passes on to us from God contains far more wonderful promises.
7 The old agreement didn’t even work. If it had, there would have been no need for another to replace it. 8 But God himself found fault with the old one, for he said, “The day will come when I will make a new agreement with the people of Israel and the people of Judah. 9 This new agreement will not be like the old one I gave to their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; they did not keep their part in that agreement, so I had to cancel it. 10 But this is the new agreement I will make with the people of Israel, says the Lord: I will write my laws in their minds so that they will know what I want them to do without my even telling them, and these laws will be in their hearts so that they will want to obey them, and I will be their God and they shall be my people. 11 And no one then will need to speak to his friend or neighbor or brother, saying, ‘You, too, should know the Lord,’ because everyone, great and small, will know me already. 12 And I will be merciful to them in their wrongdoings, and I will remember their sins no more.”
13 God speaks of these new promises, of this new agreement, as taking the place of the old one; for the old one is out of date now and has been put aside forever.
13 Yet how quickly they forgot again! They wouldn’t wait for him to act 14 but demanded better food,[a] testing God’s patience to the breaking point. 15 So he gave them their demands but sent them leanness in their souls.[b] 16 They were envious of Moses, yes, and Aaron too, the man anointed[c] by God as his priest. 17 Because of this, the earth opened and swallowed Dathan, Abiram, and his friends; 18 and fire fell from heaven to consume these wicked men. 19-20 For they preferred a statue of an ox that eats grass to the glorious presence of God himself. 21-22 Thus they despised their Savior who had done such mighty miracles in Egypt and at the Red Sea. 23 So the Lord declared he would destroy them. But Moses, his chosen one, stepped into the breach between the people and their God and begged him to turn from his wrath and not destroy them.
24 They refused to enter the Promised Land, for they wouldn’t believe his solemn oath to care for them. 25 Instead, they pouted in their tents and mourned and despised his command. 26 Therefore he swore that he would kill them in the wilderness 27 and send their children away to distant lands as exiles. 28 Then our fathers joined the worshipers of Baal at Peor and even offered sacrifices to the dead![d] 29 With all these things they angered him—and so a plague broke out upon them 30 and continued until Phinehas executed those whose sins had caused the plague to start. 31 (For this good deed Phinehas will be remembered forever.)
7 Even honey seems tasteless to a man who is full; but if he is hungry, he’ll eat anything!
8 A man who strays from home is like a bird that wanders from its nest.
9 Friendly suggestions are as pleasant as perfume.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.