Every person ever born has a disobedient nature that must be killed. I was just thinking about how even death has a good purpose just before I logged on and read your thread. How horrible heaven would be if any sin, hatred, and rebellion were allowed there. All will be judged according to their works. When God's judgments are in the earth, man will learn righteousness and it will flow down like water....
“Seek Me that You May Live”
1Hear this word which I take up for you as a dirge, O house of Israel:
2She has fallen, she will not rise again—
The virgin Israel.
She
lies neglected on her land;
There is none to raise her up.
3For thus says the Lord GOD,
“The city which goes forth a thousand
strong
Will have a hundred left,
And the one which goes forth a hundred
strong
Will have ten left to the house of Israel.”
4For thus says the LORD to the house of Israel,
“Seek Me that you may live.
5“But do not resort to Bethel
And do not come to Gilgal,
Nor cross over to Beersheba;
For Gilgal will certainly go into captivity
And Bethel will come to trouble.
6“Seek the LORD that you may live,
Or He will break forth like a fire, O house of Joseph,
And it will consume with none to quench
it for Bethel,
7For those who turn justice into wormwood
And cast righteousness down to the earth.”
8He who made the Pleiades and Orion
And changes deep darkness into morning,
Who also darkens day
into night,
Who calls for the waters of the sea
And pours them out on the surface of the earth,
The LORD is His name.
9It is He who flashes forth
with destruction upon the strong,
So that destruction comes upon the fortress.
10They hate him who reproves in the gate,
And they abhor him who speaks
with integrity.
11Therefore because you impose heavy rent on the poor
And exact a tribute of grain from them,
Though you have built houses of well-hewn stone,
Yet you will not live in them;
You have planted pleasant vineyards,
yet you will not drink their wine.
12For I know your transgressions are many
and your sins are great,
You who distress the righteous
and accept bribes
And turn aside the poor in the gate.
13Therefore at such a time the prudent person keeps silent,
for it is an evil time.
14Seek good and not evil, that you may live;
And thus may the LORD God of hosts be with you,
Just as you have said!
15Hate evil, love good,
And establish justice in the gate!
Perhaps the LORD God of hosts
May be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.
16Therefore thus says the LORD God of hosts, the Lord,
“There is wailing in all the plazas,
And in all the streets they say, ‘Alas! Alas!’
They also call the farmer to mourning
And professional mourners to lamentation.
17“And in all the vineyards
there is wailing,
Because I will pass through the midst of you,” says the LORD.
18Alas, you who are longing for the day of the LORD,
For what purpose
will the day of the LORD
be to you?
It
will be darkness and not light;
19As when a man flees from a lion
And a bear meets him,
Or goes home, leans his hand against the wall
And a snake bites him.
20Will not the day of the LORD
be darkness instead of light,
Even gloom with no brightness in it?
21“I hate, I reject your festivals,
Nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies.
22“Even though you offer up to Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings,
I will not accept
them;
And I will not
even look at the peace offerings of your fatlings.
23“Take away from Me the noise of your songs;
I will not even listen to the sound of your harps.
24“But let justice roll down like waters
And righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
25“Did you present Me with sacrifices and grain offerings in the wilderness for forty years, O house of Israel?
26“You also carried along Sikkuth your king and Kiyyun, your images, the star of your gods which you made for yourselves.
27“Therefore, I will make you go into exile beyond Damascus,” says the LORD, whose name is the God of hosts.
“Those at Ease in Zion”
1Woe to those who are at ease in Zion
And to those who
feel secure in the mountain of Samaria,
The distinguished men of the foremost of nations,
To whom the house of Israel comes.
2Go over to Calneh and look,
And go from there to Hamath the great,
Then go down to Gath of the Philistines.
Are they better than these kingdoms,
Or is their territory greater than yours?
3Do you put off the day of calamity,
And would you bring near the seat of violence?
4Those who recline on beds of ivory
And sprawl on their couches,
And eat lambs from the flock
And calves from the midst of the stall,
5Who improvise to the sound of the harp,
And like David have composed songs for themselves,
6Who drink wine from sacrificial bowls
While they anoint themselves with the finest of oils,
Yet they have not grieved over the ruin of Joseph.
7Therefore, they will now go into exile at the head of the exiles,
And the sprawlers’ banqueting will pass away.
8The Lord GOD has sworn by Himself, the LORD God of hosts has declared:
“I loathe the arrogance of Jacob,
And detest his citadels;
Therefore I will deliver up
the city and all it contains.”
9And it will be, if ten men are left in one house, they will die.
10Then one’s uncle, or his undertaker, will lift him up to carry out
his bones from the house, and he will say to the one who is in the innermost part of the house, “Is anyone else with you?” And that one will say, “No one.” Then he will answer, “Keep quiet. For the name of the LORD is not to be mentioned.”
11For behold, the LORD is going to command that the great house be smashed to pieces and the small house to fragments.
12Do horses run on rocks?
Or does one plow them with oxen?
Yet you have turned justice into poison
And the fruit of righteousness into wormwood,
13You who rejoice in Lodebar,
And say, “Have we not by our
own strength taken Karnaim for ourselves?”
14“For behold, I am going to raise up a nation against you,
O house of Israel,” declares the LORD God of hosts,
“And they will afflict you from the entrance of Hamath
To the brook of the Arabah.”
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