With all my heart I try to serve you; keep me from disobeying your commandments.

Give me the desire to obey your laws rather than to get rich.

Keep me from wanting to do wrong and from joining evil people in their wickedness. May I never take part in their feasts.

"Whenever one of you Israelites or one of you foreigners who live in the Israelite community turn away from me and worship idols, and then go to consult a prophet, I, the LORD, will give you your answer!

"If any prophets are deceived into giving a false answer, it is because I, the LORD, have deceived them. I will remove them from the people of Israel.

And so God sends the power of error to work in them so that they believe what is false.

The result is that all who have not believed the truth, but have taken pleasure in sin, will be condemned.

Then he said to me, "Make the minds of these people dull, their ears deaf, and their eyes blind, so that they cannot see or hear or understand. If they did, they might turn to me and be healed."

"But King Sihon would not let us pass through his country. The LORD your God had made him stubborn and rebellious, so that we could defeat him and take his territory, which we still occupy.

The LORD had made them determined to fight the Israelites, so that they would be condemned to total destruction and all be killed without mercy. This was what the LORD had commanded Moses.

"God has blinded their eyes and closed their minds, so that their eyes would not see, and their minds would not understand, and they would not turn to me, says God, for me to heal them."

So then, God has mercy on anyone he wishes, and he makes stubborn anyone he wishes.

But who are you, my friend, to talk back to God? A clay pot does not ask the man who made it, "Why did you make me like this?"

And whenever it stopped, he would say, "Return, LORD, to the thousands of families of Israel."

Why have you abandoned us like this, O God? Will you be angry with your own people forever?

Remember your people, whom you chose for yourself long ago, whom you brought out of slavery to be your own tribe. Remember Mount Zion, where once you lived.

Turn to us, Almighty God! Look down from heaven at us; come and save your people!

How much longer will your anger last? Have pity, O LORD, on your servants!

Then the angel said, "Almighty LORD, you have been angry with Jerusalem and the cities of Judah for seventy years now. How much longer will it be before you show them mercy?"