TSK · Isaiah 55:7

But the LORD saw that the wickedness of humankind had become great on the earth. Every inclination of the thoughts of their minds was only evil all the time.

‘The LORD is slow to anger and abounding in loyal love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children until the third and fourth generations.’

He met Asa and told him,“Listen to me, Asa and all Judah and Benjamin! The LORD is with you when you are loyal to him. If you seek him, he will respond to you, but if you reject him, he will reject you.

Messengers delivered the letters from the king and his officials throughout Israel and Judah. This royal edict read:“O Israelites, return to the LORD God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, so he may return to you who have been spared from the kings of Assyria.

If you return to the Almighty, you will be built up; if you remove wicked behavior far from your tent,

If I had harbored sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.

O Israel, hope in the LORD, for the LORD exhibits loyal love, and is more than willing to deliver.

Wash! Cleanse yourselves! Remove your sinful deeds from my sight. Stop sinning!

A deceiver’s methods are evil; he dreams up evil plans to ruin the poor with lies, even when the needy are in the right.

I, I am the one who blots out your rebellious deeds for my sake; your sins I do not remember.

Even if the mountains are removed and the hills displaced, my devotion will not be removed from you, nor will my covenant of friendship be displaced,” says the LORD, the one who has compassion on you.

That is why the rains have been withheld, and the spring rains have not come. Yet in spite of this you are obstinate as a prostitute. You refuse to be ashamed of what you have done.

“Come back to me, my wayward sons,” says the LORD,“for I am your true master. If you do, I will take one of you from each town and two of you from each family group, and I will bring you back to Zion.

Willful Disregard of God Will Lead to Destruction The LORD said to me,“Tell them,‘The LORD says, Do people not get back up when they fall down? Do they not turn around when they go the wrong way?

When I say to the wicked,“You will certainly die,” and you do not warn him– you do not speak out to warn the wicked to turn from his wicked lifestyle so that he may live– that wicked person will die for his iniquity, but I will hold you accountable for his death.

When a wicked person turns from the wickedness he has committed and does what is just and right, he will preserve his life.

For I take no delight in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent and live!

Suppose I say to the wicked,‘You must certainly die,’ but he turns from his sin and does what is just and right.

When God saw their actions– that they turned from their evil way of living!– God relented concerning the judgment he had threatened them with and he did not destroy them.

Go and learn what this saying means:‘I want mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

“Woe to you, experts in the law and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.

All these evils come from within and defile a person.”

But the Lord said to him,“Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness.

because this son of mine was dead, and is alive again– he was lost and is found!’ So they began to celebrate.

You have no share or part in this matter because your heart is not right before God!

And the gift is not like the one who sinned. For judgment, resulting from the one transgression, led to condemnation, but the gracious gift from the many failures led to justification.

to the praise of the glory of his grace that he has freely bestowed on us in his dearly loved Son.

Then when desire conceives, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is full grown, it gives birth to death.