I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you today that, if you disobey me, you will soon disappear from the land. You will not live very long in the land across the Jordan that you are about to occupy. You will be completely destroyed.

you will be destroyed---I warn you here and now. You will not live long in that land across the Jordan that you are about to occupy.

But just as he kept every promise that he made to you, so he will carry out every threat.

If you do not keep the covenant which the LORD your God commanded you to keep and if you serve and worship other gods, then in his anger he will punish you, and soon none of you will be left in this good land that he has given you."

then I will remove my people Israel from the land that I have given them. I will also abandon this Temple which I have consecrated as the place where I am to be worshiped. People everywhere will ridicule Israel and treat her with contempt.

It was while Pekah was king that Tiglath Pileser, the emperor of Assyria, captured the cities of Ijon, Abel Beth Maacah, Janoah, Kedesh, and Hazor, and the territories of Gilead, Galilee, and Naphtali, and took the people to Assyria as prisoners.

which was the ninth year of the reign of Hoshea, the Assyrian emperor captured Samaria, took the Israelites to Assyria as prisoners, and settled some of them in the city of Halah, some near the Habor River in the district of Gozan and some in the cities of Media.

then I will remove you from the land that I gave you, and I will abandon this Temple that I have consecrated as the place where I am to be worshiped. People everywhere will ridicule it and treat it with contempt.

He took all the survivors to Babylonia, where they served him and his descendants as slaves until the rise of the Persian Empire.

And so what the LORD had foretold through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: "The land will lie desolate for seventy years, to make up for the Sabbath rest that has not been observed."

because you have not yet entered the land that the LORD your God is giving you, where you can live in peace.

I was angry and made a solemn promise: 'You will never enter the land where I would have given you rest.' "

Now, God has offered us the promise that we may receive that rest he spoke about. Let us take care, then, that none of you will be found to have failed to receive that promised rest.

We who believe, then, do receive that rest which God promised. It is just as he said, "I was angry and made a solemn promise: 'They will never enter the land where I would have given them rest!' " He said this even though his work had been finished from the time he created the world.

This same matter is spoken of again: "They will never enter that land where I would have given them rest."

This is shown by the fact that God sets another day, which is called "Today." Many years later he spoke of it through David in the scripture already quoted: "If you hear God's voice today, do not be stubborn."

As it is, however, there still remains for God's people a rest like God's resting on the seventh day.

Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these acts, for that is how the pagans made themselves unclean, those pagans who lived in the land before you and whom the LORD is driving out so that you can go in.

They did all these disgusting things and made the land unclean, but you must not do them. All of you, whether Israelites or foreigners living with you, must keep the LORD's laws and commands,

and then the land will not reject you, as it rejected the pagans who lived there before you.

The LORD said, "Keep all my laws and commands, so that you will not be rejected by the land of Canaan, into which I am bringing you.

But I have promised you this rich and fertile land as your possession, and I will give it to you. I am the LORD your God, and I have set you apart from the other nations.

You shall be holy and belong only to me, because I am the LORD and I am holy. I have set you apart from the other nations so that you would belong to me alone.

They killed those innocent children, and the land was defiled by those murders.

Look up at the hilltops. Is there any place where you have not acted like a prostitute? You waited for lovers along the roadside, as an Arab waits for victims in the desert. You have defiled the land with your prostitution.

Listen to the sound of crying in Zion: "We are ruined! We are completely disgraced! We must leave our land; our homes have been torn down."

The LORD is going to throw you out of this land; he is going to crush you until not one of you is left. The LORD has spoken.

I will bring you, my people Israel, back to live again in the land. It will be your own land, and it will never again let your children starve.

But from now on it will no longer eat people and rob you of your children. I, the Sovereign LORD, have spoken.