But they answered, "We cannot let our sister be treated like a common whore."

But she became angry with him, went back to her father's house in Bethlehem, and stayed there four months.

I found something more bitter than death---the woman who is like a trap. The love she offers you will catch you like a net, and her arms around you will hold you like a chain. A man who pleases God can get away, but she will catch the sinner.

The Sovereign LORD says, "Israel, long ago you rejected my authority; you refused to obey me and worship me. On every high hill and under every green tree you worshiped fertility gods.

The LORD says, "If a man divorces his wife, and she leaves him and becomes another man's wife, he cannot take her back again. This would completely defile the land. But, Israel, you have had many lovers, and now you want to return to me!

When Josiah was king, the LORD said to me, "Have you seen what Israel, that unfaithful woman, has done? She has turned away from me, and on every high hill and under every green tree she has acted like a prostitute.

Judah also saw that I divorced Israel and sent her away because she had turned from me and had become a prostitute. But Judah, Israel's unfaithful sister, was not afraid. She too became a prostitute

"But you took advantage of your beauty and fame to sleep with everyone who came along.

"Because you were not satisfied by the others, you went running after the Assyrians. You were their prostitute, but they didn't satisfy you either.

They will burn your houses down and let crowds of women see your punishment. I will make you stop being a prostitute and make you stop giving gifts to your lovers.

Although she was mine, Oholah continued to be a prostitute and was full of lust for her lovers from Assyria.

She became more of a prostitute than ever, acting the way she did as a young woman, when she was a prostitute in Egypt.

They went back to these prostitutes again and again. They went back to Oholah and Oholibah, those immoral women.

(SEE 2:4)

I told her that for a long time she would have to wait for me without being a prostitute or committing adultery; and during this time I would wait for her.

"Even though you people of Israel are unfaithful to me, may Judah not be guilty of the same thing. Don't worship at Gilgal or Bethaven, or make promises there in the name of the living LORD.

One night God appeared to him in a dream and said, "You are going to die, because you have taken this woman; she is already married."

But now, give the woman back to her husband. He is a prophet, and he will pray for you, so that you will not die. But if you do not give her back, I warn you that you are going to die, you and all your people."

Then Abimelech called Abraham and asked, "What have you done to us? What wrong have I done to you to make you bring this disaster on me and my kingdom? No one should ever do what you have done to me.

If a man commits adultery with the wife of an Israelite, both he and the woman shall be put to death.

If a priest's daughter becomes a prostitute, she disgraces her father; she shall be burned to death.

then they are to take her out to the entrance of her father's house, where the men of her city are to stone her to death. She has done a shameful thing among our people by having intercourse before she was married, while she was still living in her father's house. In this way you will get rid of this evil.

"Suppose a man is caught in a town having intercourse with a young woman who is engaged to someone else.

"Suppose a man out in the countryside rapes a young woman who is engaged to someone else. Then only the man is to be put to death;

The man raped the engaged woman in the countryside, and although she cried for help, there was no one to help her.

"Parents are not to be put to death for crimes committed by their children, and children are not to be put to death for crimes committed by their parents; people are to be put to death only for a crime they themselves have committed.

David became very angry at the rich man and said, "I swear by the living LORD that the man who did this ought to die!

"You are that man," Nathan said to David. "And this is what the LORD God of Israel says: 'I made you king of Israel and rescued you from Saul.

When the people who were taken away as prisoners from Jerusalem to Babylonia want to bring a curse on someone, they will say, 'May the LORD treat you like Zedekiah and Ahab, whom the king of Babylonia roasted alive!'

This will be their fate because they are guilty of terrible sins---they have committed adultery and have told lies in the LORD's name. This was against the LORD's will; he knows what they have done, and he is a witness against them. The LORD has spoken."

"Do not judge others, so that God will not judge you,

Why, then, do you look at the speck in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the log in your own eye?

You hypocrite! First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will be able to see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.

Do you, my friend, pass judgment on others? You have no excuse at all, whoever you are. For when you judge others and then do the same things which they do, you condemn yourself.

We know that God is right when he judges the people who do such things as these.

Keep what you believe about this matter, then, between yourself and God. Happy are those who do not feel guilty when they do something they judge is right!