The LORD says, "Now, let's settle the matter. You are stained red with sin, but I will wash you as clean as snow. Although your stains are deep red, you will be as white as wool.

Remember that you promised to make everything go well for me and to give me more descendants than anyone could count, as many as the grains of sand along the seashore."

I want someone to plead with God for me, as one pleads for a friend.

How I wish I knew where to find him, and knew how to go where he is.

I want to know what he would say and how he would answer me.

(SEE 40:3)

I have already said more than I should.

Receive my prayer as incense, my uplifted hands as an evening sacrifice.

I planted you like a choice vine from the very best seed. But look what you have become! You are like a rotten, worthless vine.

How can you say you have not defiled yourself, that you have never worshiped Baal? Look how you sinned in the valley; see what you have done. You are like a wild camel in heat, running around loose,

Israel, don't wear your feet out, or let your throat become dry from chasing after other gods. But you say, 'No! I can't turn back. I have loved foreign gods and will go after them.' "

You will all be disgraced---you that say that a tree is your father and that a rock is your mother. This will happen because you turned away from me instead of turning to me. But when you are in trouble, you ask me to come and save you.

What is your complaint? Why have you rebelled against me?

People of Israel, listen to what I am saying. Have I been like a desert to you, like a dark and dangerous land? Why, then, do you say that you will do as you please, that you will never come back to me?

You certainly know how to chase after lovers. Even the worst of women can learn from you.

you say, 'I am innocent; surely the LORD is no longer angry with me.' But I, the LORD, will punish you because you deny that you have sinned.

The Sovereign LORD says, "I will once again let the Israelites ask me for help, and I will let them increase in numbers like a flock of sheep.

Who has ever given him anything, so that he had to pay it back?"

Summon the nations to come to the trial. Which of their gods can predict the future? Which of them foretold what is happening now? Let these gods bring in their witnesses to prove that they are right, to testify to the truth of their words.

Now stand up straight and answer my questions.

Are you trying to prove that I am unjust--- to put me in the wrong and yourself in the right?

But the teacher of the Law wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "Who is my neighbor?"

Jesus said to them, "You are the ones who make yourselves look right in other people's sight, but God knows your hearts. For the things that are considered of great value by people are worth nothing in God's sight.

Jesus also told this parable to people who were sure of their own goodness and despised everybody else.

The Pharisee stood apart by himself and prayed, 'I thank you, God, that I am not greedy, dishonest, or an adulterer, like everybody else. I thank you that I am not like that tax collector over there.

But the tax collector stood at a distance and would not even raise his face to heaven, but beat on his breast and said, 'God, have pity on me, a sinner!'

Who will accuse God's chosen people? God himself declares them not guilty!

They have not known the way in which God puts people right with himself, and instead, they have tried to set up their own way; and so they did not submit themselves to God's way of putting people right.