The LORD asked, "Why should I forgive the sins of my people? They have abandoned me and have worshiped gods that are not real. I fed my people until they were full, but they committed adultery and spent their time with prostitutes.

They were like well-fed stallions wild with desire, each lusting for his neighbor's wife.

You steal, murder, commit adultery, tell lies under oath, offer sacrifices to Baal, and worship gods that you had not known before.

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.

Some of your people tell lies about others in order to have them put to death. Some of them eat sacrifices offered to idols. Some are always satisfying their lusts.

Some commit adultery, and others seduce their daughters-in-law or their half sisters.

They make promises and break them; they lie, murder, steal, and commit adultery. Crimes increase, and there is one murder after another.

And so the land will dry up, and everything that lives on it will die. All the animals and birds, and even the fish, will die."

The LORD Almighty says, "I will appear among you to judge, and I will testify at once against those who practice magic, against adulterers, against those who give false testimony, those who cheat employees out of their wages, and those who take advantage of widows, orphans, and foreigners---against all who do not respect me.

Surely you know that the wicked will not possess God's Kingdom. Do not fool yourselves; people who are immoral or who worship idols or are adulterers or homosexual perverts

or who steal or are greedy or are drunkards or who slander others or are thieves---none of these will possess God's Kingdom.

What human nature does is quite plain. It shows itself in immoral, filthy, and indecent actions;

they are envious, get drunk, have orgies, and do other things like these. I warn you now as I have before: those who do these things will not possess the Kingdom of God.

Marriage is to be honored by all, and husbands and wives must be faithful to each other. God will judge those who are immoral and those who commit adultery.

Unfaithful people! Don't you know that to be the world's friend means to be God's enemy? If you want to be the world's friend, you make yourself God's enemy.

Then he said to me, "On it is written the curse that is to go out over the whole land. On one side of the scroll it says that every thief will be removed from the land; and on the other side it says that everyone who tells lies under oath will also be taken away.

The LORD Almighty says that he will send this curse out, and it will enter the house of every thief and the house of everyone who tells lies under oath. It will remain in their houses and leave them in ruins."

for the immoral, for sexual perverts, for kidnappers, for those who lie and give false testimony or who do anything else contrary to sound doctrine.

But, LORD, you know me; you see what I do and how I love you. Drag these evil people away like sheep to be butchered; guard them until it is time for them to be slaughtered.

How long will our land be dry, and the grass in every field be withered? Animals and birds are dying because of the wickedness of our people, people who say, 'God doesn't see what we are doing.' "

"Judah is in mourning; its cities are dying, its people lie on the ground in sorrow, and Jerusalem cries out for help.

All night long she cries; tears run down her cheeks. Of all her former friends, not one is left to comfort her. Her allies have betrayed her and are all against her now.

No one comes to the Temple now to worship on the holy days. The young women who sang there suffer, and the priests can only groan. The city gates stand empty, and Zion is in agony.

The fields are bare; the ground mourns because the grain is destroyed, the grapes are dried up, and the olive trees are withered.

I said, "I will mourn for the mountains and weep for the pastures, because they have dried up, and no one travels through them. The sound of livestock is no longer heard; birds and wild animals have fled and gone."

He made rich soil become a salty wasteland because of the wickedness of those who lived there.

So God has pronounced a curse on the earth. Its people are paying for what they have done. Fewer and fewer remain alive.