A fool speaks foolishly and thinks up evil things to do. What he does and what he says are an insult to the LORD, and he never feeds the hungry or gives thirsty people anything to drink.

I knew that you couldn't be trusted, that you have always been known as a rebel. That is why you never heard of this at all, why no word of it ever came to your ears.

The LORD says, "Who are these gods that make you afraid, so that you tell me lies and forget me completely? Have you stopped honoring me because I have kept silent for so long?

But their words were all lies; nothing they said was sincere.

And after all this, Judah, Israel's unfaithful sister, only pretended to return to me; she was not sincere. I, the LORD, have spoken."

that you are making a fatal mistake. You asked me to pray to the LORD our God for you, and you promised that you would do everything that he commands.

"But you say, 'What the Lord does isn't right.' Listen to me, you Israelites. Do you think my way of doing things isn't right? It is your way that isn't right.

"But as soon as they entered the land at Adam, they broke the covenant I had made with them.

"They are doomed! They have left me and rebelled against me. They will be destroyed. I wanted to save them, but their worship of me was false.

The LORD says, "The people of Israel have surrounded me with lies and deceit, and the people of Judah are still rebelling against me, the faithful and holy God.

Peter said to him, "Ananias, why did you let Satan take control of you and make you lie to the Holy Spirit by keeping part of the money you received for the property?

Before you sold the property, it belonged to you; and after you sold it, the money was yours. Why, then, did you decide to do such a thing? You have not lied to people---you have lied to God!"

God said, "People of Israel, you have sinned against me and opposed me. But now, come back to me!

I have obeyed the law of the LORD; I have not turned away from my God.

for my people have committed two sins: they have turned away from me, the spring of fresh water, and they have dug cisterns, cracked cisterns that can hold no water at all.

Your own evil will punish you, and your turning from me will condemn you. You will learn how bitter and wrong it is to abandon me, the LORD your God, and no longer to remain faithful to me. I, the Sovereign LORD Almighty, have spoken."

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.

But like an unfaithful wife, you have not been faithful to me. I, the LORD, have spoken."

LORD, you are Israel's hope; all who abandon you will be put to shame. They will disappear like names written in the dust, because they have abandoned you, the LORD, the spring of fresh water.

I will make an eternal covenant with them. I will never stop doing good things for them, and I will make them fear me with all their heart, so that they will never turn away from me.

where they will live in exile. There they will remember me and know that I have punished them and disgraced them, because their faithless hearts deserted me and they preferred idols to me. And they will be disgusted with themselves because of the evil and degrading things they have done.

When the LORD first spoke to Israel through Hosea, he said to Hosea, "Go and get married; your wife will be unfaithful, and your children will be just like her. In the same way my people have left me and become unfaithful."

My friends, be careful that none of you have a heart so evil and unbelieving that you will turn away from the living God.

But you people! You are stubborn and rebellious; you have turned aside and left me.

I wish I had a place to stay in the desert where I could get away from my people. They are all unfaithful, a mob of traitors.

Everyone must be on guard against their friends, and no one can trust their relatives; for all relatives are as deceitful as Jacob, and everyone slanders their friends.

You snakes---how can you say good things when you are evil? For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.

"You can be sure that on the Judgment Day you will have to give account of every useless word you have ever spoken.

For from the inside, from your heart, come the evil ideas which lead you to do immoral things, to rob, kill,

commit adultery, be greedy, and do all sorts of evil things; deceit, indecency, jealousy, slander, pride, and folly---

As the Scriptures say: "There is no one who is righteous,

All have turned away from God; they have all gone wrong; no one does what is right, not even one.

their speech is filled with bitter curses.

they leave ruin and destruction wherever they go.

nor have they learned reverence for God."

Then our evil desires conceive and give birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

And the tongue is like a fire. It is a world of wrong, occupying its place in our bodies and spreading evil through our whole being. It sets on fire the entire course of our existence with the fire that comes to it from hell itself.