-
Psalms 107:34
He turns the fruitful land into salty wastelands, because of the wickedness of those who live there.
-
Deuteronomy 28:1-68
“ If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully keep all his commands that I am giving you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the world.You will experience all these blessings if you obey the Lord your God:Your towns and your fields will be blessed.Your children and your crops will be blessed. The offspring of your herds and flocks will be blessed.Your fruit baskets and breadboards will be blessed.Wherever you go and whatever you do, you will be blessed.“ The Lord will conquer your enemies when they attack you. They will attack you from one direction, but they will scatter from you in seven!“ The Lord will guarantee a blessing on everything you do and will fill your storehouses with grain. The Lord your God will bless you in the land he is giving you.“ If you obey the commands of the Lord your God and walk in his ways, the Lord will establish you as his holy people as he swore he would do.Then all the nations of the world will see that you are a people claimed by the Lord, and they will stand in awe of you.“ The Lord will give you prosperity in the land he swore to your ancestors to give you, blessing you with many children, numerous livestock, and abundant crops.The Lord will send rain at the proper time from his rich treasury in the heavens and will bless all the work you do. You will lend to many nations, but you will never need to borrow from them.If you listen to these commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today, and if you carefully obey them, the Lord will make you the head and not the tail, and you will always be on top and never at the bottom.You must not turn away from any of the commands I am giving you today, nor follow after other gods and worship them.“ But if you refuse to listen to the Lord your God and do not obey all the commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come and overwhelm you:Your towns and your fields will be cursed.Your fruit baskets and breadboards will be cursed.Your children and your crops will be cursed. The offspring of your herds and flocks will be cursed.Wherever you go and whatever you do, you will be cursed.“ The Lord himself will send on you curses, confusion, and frustration in everything you do, until at last you are completely destroyed for doing evil and abandoning me.The Lord will afflict you with diseases until none of you are left in the land you are about to enter and occupy.The Lord will strike you with wasting diseases, fever, and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, and with blight and mildew. These disasters will pursue you until you die.The skies above will be as unyielding as bronze, and the earth beneath will be as hard as iron.The Lord will change the rain that falls on your land into powder, and dust will pour down from the sky until you are destroyed.“ The Lord will cause you to be defeated by your enemies. You will attack your enemies from one direction, but you will scatter from them in seven! You will be an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.Your corpses will be food for all the scavenging birds and wild animals, and no one will be there to chase them away.“ The Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, scurvy, and the itch, from which you cannot be cured.The Lord will strike you with madness, blindness, and panic.You will grope around in broad daylight like a blind person groping in the darkness, but you will not find your way. You will be oppressed and robbed continually, and no one will come to save you.“ You will be engaged to a woman, but another man will sleep with her. You will build a house, but someone else will live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will never enjoy its fruit.Your ox will be butchered before your eyes, but you will not eat a single bite of the meat. Your donkey will be taken from you, never to be returned. Your sheep and goats will be given to your enemies, and no one will be there to help you.You will watch as your sons and daughters are taken away as slaves. Your heart will break for them, but you won’t be able to help them.A foreign nation you have never heard about will eat the crops you worked so hard to grow. You will suffer under constant oppression and harsh treatment.You will go mad because of all the tragedy you see around you.The Lord will cover your knees and legs with incurable boils. In fact, you will be covered from head to foot.“ The Lord will exile you and your king to a nation unknown to you and your ancestors. There in exile you will worship gods of wood and stone!You will become an object of horror, ridicule, and mockery among all the nations to which the Lord sends you.“ You will plant much but harvest little, for locusts will eat your crops.You will plant vineyards and care for them, but you will not drink the wine or eat the grapes, for worms will destroy the vines.You will grow olive trees throughout your land, but you will never use the olive oil, for the fruit will drop before it ripens.You will have sons and daughters, but you will lose them, for they will be led away into captivity.Swarms of insects will destroy your trees and crops.“ The foreigners living among you will become stronger and stronger, while you become weaker and weaker.They will lend money to you, but you will not lend to them. They will be the head, and you will be the tail!“ If you refuse to listen to the Lord your God and to obey the commands and decrees he has given you, all these curses will pursue and overtake you until you are destroyed.These horrors will serve as a sign and warning among you and your descendants forever.If you do not serve the Lord your God with joy and enthusiasm for the abundant benefits you have received,you will serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you. You will be left hungry, thirsty, naked, and lacking in everything. The Lord will put an iron yoke on your neck, oppressing you harshly until he has destroyed you.“ The Lord will bring a distant nation against you from the end of the earth, and it will swoop down on you like a vulture. It is a nation whose language you do not understand,a fierce and heartless nation that shows no respect for the old and no pity for the young.Its armies will devour your livestock and crops, and you will be destroyed. They will leave you no grain, new wine, olive oil, calves, or lambs, and you will starve to death.They will attack your cities until all the fortified walls in your land— the walls you trusted to protect you— are knocked down. They will attack all the towns in the land the Lord your God has given you.“ The siege and terrible distress of the enemy’s attack will be so severe that you will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters, whom the Lord your God has given you.The most tenderhearted man among you will have no compassion for his own brother, his beloved wife, and his surviving children.He will refuse to share with them the flesh he is devouring— the flesh of one of his own children— because he has nothing else to eat during the siege and terrible distress that your enemy will inflict on all your towns.The most tender and delicate woman among you— so delicate she would not so much as touch the ground with her foot— will be selfish toward the husband she loves and toward her own son or daughter.She will hide from them the afterbirth and the new baby she has borne, so that she herself can secretly eat them. She will have nothing else to eat during the siege and terrible distress that your enemy will inflict on all your towns.“ If you refuse to obey all the words of instruction that are written in this book, and if you do not fear the glorious and awesome name of the Lord your God,then the Lord will overwhelm you and your children with indescribable plagues. These plagues will be intense and without relief, making you miserable and unbearably sick.He will afflict you with all the diseases of Egypt that you feared so much, and you will have no relief.The Lord will afflict you with every sickness and plague there is, even those not mentioned in this Book of Instruction, until you are destroyed.Though you become as numerous as the stars in the sky, few of you will be left because you would not listen to the Lord your God.“ Just as the Lord has found great pleasure in causing you to prosper and multiply, the Lord will find pleasure in destroying you. You will be torn from the land you are about to enter and occupy.For the Lord will scatter you among all the nations from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship foreign gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods made of wood and stone!There among those nations you will find no peace or place to rest. And the Lord will cause your heart to tremble, your eyesight to fail, and your soul to despair.Your life will constantly hang in the balance. You will live night and day in fear, unsure if you will survive.In the morning you will say,‘ If only it were night!’ And in the evening you will say,‘ If only it were morning!’ For you will be terrified by the awful horrors you see around you.Then the Lord will send you back to Egypt in ships, to a destination I promised you would never see again. There you will offer to sell yourselves to your enemies as slaves, but no one will buy you.”
-
Deuteronomy 4:6-8
Obey them completely, and you will display your wisdom and intelligence among the surrounding nations. When they hear all these decrees, they will exclaim,‘ How wise and prudent are the people of this great nation!’For what great nation has a god as near to them as the Lord our God is near to us whenever we call on him?And what great nation has decrees and regulations as righteous and fair as this body of instructions that I am giving you today?
-
Deuteronomy 29:18-28
I am making this covenant with you so that no one among you— no man, woman, clan, or tribe— will turn away from the Lord our God to worship these gods of other nations, and so that no root among you bears bitter and poisonous fruit.“ Those who hear the warnings of this curse should not congratulate themselves, thinking,‘ I am safe, even though I am following the desires of my own stubborn heart.’ This would lead to utter ruin!The Lord will never pardon such people. Instead his anger and jealousy will burn against them. All the curses written in this book will come down on them, and the Lord will erase their names from under heaven.The Lord will separate them from all the tribes of Israel, to pour out on them all the curses of the covenant recorded in this Book of Instruction.“ Then the generations to come, both your own descendants and the foreigners who come from distant lands, will see the devastation of the land and the diseases the Lord inflicts on it.They will exclaim,‘ The whole land is devastated by sulfur and salt. It is a wasteland with nothing planted and nothing growing, not even a blade of grass. It is like the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord destroyed in his intense anger.’“ And all the surrounding nations will ask,‘ Why has the Lord done this to this land? Why was he so angry?’“ And the answer will be,‘ This happened because the people of the land abandoned the covenant that the Lord, the God of their ancestors, made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt.Instead, they turned away to serve and worship gods they had not known before, gods that were not from the Lord.That is why the Lord’s anger has burned against this land, bringing down on it every curse recorded in this book.In great anger and fury the Lord uprooted his people from their land and banished them to another land, where they still live today!’
-
Jeremiah 2:2-25
“ Go and shout this message to Jerusalem. This is what the Lord says:“ I remember how eager you were to please me as a young bride long ago, how you loved me and followed me even through the barren wilderness.In those days Israel was holy to the Lord, the first of his children. All who harmed his people were declared guilty, and disaster fell on them. I, the Lord, have spoken!”Listen to the word of the Lord, people of Jacob— all you families of Israel!This is what the Lord says:“ What did your ancestors find wrong with me that led them to stray so far from me? They worshiped worthless idols, only to become worthless themselves.They did not ask,‘ Where is the Lord who brought us safely out of Egypt and led us through the barren wilderness— a land of deserts and pits, a land of drought and death, where no one lives or even travels?’“ And when I brought you into a fruitful land to enjoy its bounty and goodness, you defiled my land and corrupted the possession I had promised you.The priests did not ask,‘ Where is the Lord?’ Those who taught my word ignored me, the rulers turned against me, and the prophets spoke in the name of Baal, wasting their time on worthless idols.Therefore, I will bring my case against you,” says the Lord.“ I will even bring charges against your children’s children in the years to come.“ Go west and look in the land of Cyprus; go east and search through the land of Kedar. Has anyone ever heard of anything as strange as this?Has any nation ever traded its gods for new ones, even though they are not gods at all? Yet my people have exchanged their glorious God for worthless idols!The heavens are shocked at such a thing and shrink back in horror and dismay,” says the Lord.“ For my people have done two evil things: They have abandoned me— the fountain of living water. And they have dug for themselves cracked cisterns that can hold no water at all!“ Why has Israel become a slave? Why has he been carried away as plunder?Strong lions have roared against him, and the land has been destroyed. The towns are now in ruins, and no one lives in them anymore.Egyptians, marching from their cities of Memphis and Tahpanhes, have destroyed Israel’s glory and power.And you have brought this upon yourselves by rebelling against the Lord your God, even though he was leading you on the way!“ What have you gained by your alliances with Egypt and your covenants with Assyria? What good to you are the streams of the Nile or the waters of the Euphrates River?Your wickedness will bring its own punishment. Your turning from me will shame you. You will see what an evil, bitter thing it is to abandon the Lord your God and not to fear him. I, the Lord, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, have spoken!“ Long ago I broke the yoke that oppressed you and tore away the chains of your slavery, but still you said,‘ I will not serve you.’ On every hill and under every green tree, you have prostituted yourselves by bowing down to idols.But I was the one who planted you, choosing a vine of the purest stock— the very best. How did you grow into this corrupt wild vine?No amount of soap or lye can make you clean. I still see the stain of your guilt. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken!“ You say,‘ That’s not true! I haven’t worshiped the images of Baal!’ But how can you say that? Go and look in any valley in the land! Face the awful sins you have done. You are like a restless female camel desperately searching for a mate.You are like a wild donkey, sniffing the wind at mating time. Who can restrain her lust? Those who desire her don’t need to search, for she goes running to them!When will you stop running? When will you stop panting after other gods? But you say,‘ Save your breath. I’m in love with these foreign gods, and I can’t stop loving them now!’
-
Judges 2:6-14
After Joshua sent the people away, each of the tribes left to take possession of the land allotted to them.And the Israelites served the Lord throughout the lifetime of Joshua and the leaders who outlived him— those who had seen all the great things the Lord had done for Israel.Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of 110.They buried him in the land he had been allocated, at Timnath serah in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash.After that generation died, another generation grew up who did not acknowledge the Lord or remember the mighty things he had done for Israel.The Israelites did evil in the Lord’s sight and served the images of Baal.They abandoned the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt. They went after other gods, worshiping the gods of the people around them. And they angered the Lord.They abandoned the Lord to serve Baal and the images of Ashtoreth.This made the Lord burn with anger against Israel, so he handed them over to raiders who stole their possessions. He turned them over to their enemies all around, and they were no longer able to resist them.
-
Ezekiel 16:1-63
Then another message came to me from the Lord:“ Son of man, confront Jerusalem with her detestable sins.Give her this message from the Sovereign Lord: You are nothing but a Canaanite! Your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite.On the day you were born, no one cared about you. Your umbilical cord was not cut, and you were never washed, rubbed with salt, and wrapped in cloth.No one had the slightest interest in you; no one pitied you or cared for you. On the day you were born, you were unwanted, dumped in a field and left to die.“ But I came by and saw you there, helplessly kicking about in your own blood. As you lay there, I said,‘ Live!’And I helped you to thrive like a plant in the field. You grew up and became a beautiful jewel. Your breasts became full, and your body hair grew, but you were still naked.And when I passed by again, I saw that you were old enough for love. So I wrapped my cloak around you to cover your nakedness and declared my marriage vows. I made a covenant with you, says the Sovereign Lord, and you became mine.“ Then I bathed you and washed off your blood, and I rubbed fragrant oils into your skin.I gave you expensive clothing of fine linen and silk, beautifully embroidered, and sandals made of fine goatskin leather.I gave you lovely jewelry, bracelets, beautiful necklaces,a ring for your nose, earrings for your ears, and a lovely crown for your head.And so you were adorned with gold and silver. Your clothes were made of fine linen and costly fabric and were beautifully embroidered. You ate the finest foods— choice flour, honey, and olive oil— and became more beautiful than ever. You looked like a queen, and so you were!Your fame soon spread throughout the world because of your beauty. I dressed you in my splendor and perfected your beauty, says the Sovereign Lord.“ But you thought your fame and beauty were your own. So you gave yourself as a prostitute to every man who came along. Your beauty was theirs for the asking.You used the lovely things I gave you to make shrines for idols, where you played the prostitute. Unbelievable! How could such a thing ever happen?You took the very jewels and gold and silver ornaments I had given you and made statues of men and worshiped them. This is adultery against me!You used the beautifully embroidered clothes I gave you to dress your idols. Then you used my special oil and my incense to worship them.Imagine it! You set before them as a sacrifice the choice flour, olive oil, and honey I had given you, says the Sovereign Lord.“ Then you took your sons and daughters— the children you had borne to me— and sacrificed them to your gods. Was your prostitution not enough?Must you also slaughter my children by sacrificing them to idols?In all your years of adultery and detestable sin, you have not once remembered the days long ago when you lay naked in a field, kicking about in your own blood.“ What sorrow awaits you, says the Sovereign Lord. In addition to all your other wickedness,you built a pagan shrine and put altars to idols in every town square.On every street corner you defiled your beauty, offering your body to every passerby in an endless stream of prostitution.Then you added lustful Egypt to your lovers, provoking my anger with your increasing promiscuity.That is why I struck you with my fist and reduced your boundaries. I handed you over to your enemies, the Philistines, and even they were shocked by your lewd conduct.You have prostituted yourself with the Assyrians, too. It seems you can never find enough new lovers! And after your prostitution there, you still were not satisfied.You added to your lovers by embracing Babylonia, the land of merchants, but you still weren’t satisfied.“ What a sick heart you have, says the Sovereign Lord, to do such things as these, acting like a shameless prostitute.You build your pagan shrines on every street corner and your altars to idols in every square. In fact, you have been worse than a prostitute, so eager for sin that you have not even demanded payment.Yes, you are an adulterous wife who takes in strangers instead of her own husband.Prostitutes charge for their services— but not you! You give gifts to your lovers, bribing them to come and have sex with you.So you are the opposite of other prostitutes. You pay your lovers instead of their paying you!“ Therefore, you prostitute, listen to this message from the Lord!This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Because you have poured out your lust and exposed yourself in prostitution to all your lovers, and because you have worshiped detestable idols, and because you have slaughtered your children as sacrifices to your gods,this is what I am going to do. I will gather together all your allies— the lovers with whom you have sinned, both those you loved and those you hated— and I will strip you naked in front of them so they can stare at you.I will punish you for your murder and adultery. I will cover you with blood in my jealous fury.Then I will give you to these many nations who are your lovers, and they will destroy you. They will knock down your pagan shrines and the altars to your idols. They will strip you and take your beautiful jewels, leaving you stark naked.They will band together in a mob to stone you and cut you up with swords.They will burn your homes and punish you in front of many women. I will stop your prostitution and end your payments to your many lovers.“ Then at last my fury against you will be spent, and my jealous anger will subside. I will be calm and will not be angry with you anymore.But first, because you have not remembered your youth but have angered me by doing all these evil things, I will fully repay you for all of your sins, says the Sovereign Lord. For you have added lewd acts to all your detestable sins.Everyone who makes up proverbs will say of you,‘ Like mother, like daughter.’For your mother loathed her husband and her children, and so do you. And you are exactly like your sisters, for they despised their husbands and their children. Truly your mother was a Hittite and your father an Amorite.“ Your older sister was Samaria, who lived with her daughters in the north. Your younger sister was Sodom, who lived with her daughters in the south.But you have not merely sinned as they did. You quickly surpassed them in corruption.As surely as I live, says the Sovereign Lord, Sodom and her daughters were never as wicked as you and your daughters.Sodom’s sins were pride, gluttony, and laziness, while the poor and needy suffered outside her door.She was proud and committed detestable sins, so I wiped her out, as you have seen.“ Even Samaria did not commit half your sins. You have done far more detestable things than your sisters ever did. They seem righteous compared to you.Shame on you! Your sins are so terrible that you make your sisters seem righteous, even virtuous.“ But someday I will restore the fortunes of Sodom and Samaria, and I will restore you, too.Then you will be truly ashamed of everything you have done, for your sins make them feel good in comparison.Yes, your sisters, Sodom and Samaria, and all their people will be restored, and at that time you also will be restored.In your proud days you held Sodom in contempt.But now your greater wickedness has been exposed to all the world, and you are the one who is scorned— by Edom and all her neighbors and by Philistia.This is your punishment for all your lewdness and detestable sins, says the Lord.“ Now this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will give you what you deserve, for you have taken your solemn vows lightly by breaking your covenant.Yet I will remember the covenant I made with you when you were young, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you.Then you will remember with shame all the evil you have done. I will make your sisters, Samaria and Sodom, to be your daughters, even though they are not part of our covenant.And I will reaffirm my covenant with you, and you will know that I am the Lord.You will remember your sins and cover your mouth in silent shame when I forgive you of all that you have done. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken!”
-
Hosea 13:1
When the tribe of Ephraim spoke, the people shook with fear, for that tribe was important in Israel. But the people of Ephraim sinned by worshiping Baal and thus sealed their destruction.
-
Ezekiel 22:1-23
Now this message came to me from the Lord:“ Son of man, are you ready to judge Jerusalem? Are you ready to judge this city of murderers? Publicly denounce her detestable sins,and give her this message from the Sovereign Lord: O city of murderers, doomed and damned— city of idols, filthy and foul—you are guilty because of the blood you have shed. You are defiled because of the idols you have made. Your day of destruction has come! You have reached the end of your years. I will make you an object of mockery throughout the world.O infamous city, filled with confusion, you will be mocked by people far and near.“ Every leader in Israel who lives within your walls is bent on murder.Fathers and mothers are treated with contempt. Foreigners are forced to pay for protection. Orphans and widows are wronged and oppressed among you.You despise my holy things and violate my Sabbath days of rest.People accuse others falsely and send them to their death. You are filled with idol worshipers and people who do obscene things.Men sleep with their fathers’ wives and force themselves on women who are menstruating.Within your walls live men who commit adultery with their neighbors’ wives, who defile their daughters in law, or who rape their own sisters.There are hired murderers, loan racketeers, and extortioners everywhere. They never even think of me and my commands, says the Sovereign Lord.“ But now I clap my hands in indignation over your dishonest gain and bloodshed.How strong and courageous will you be in my day of reckoning? I, the Lord, have spoken, and I will do what I said.I will scatter you among the nations and purge you of your wickedness.And when I have been dishonored among the nations because of you, you will know that I am the Lord.”Then this message came to me from the Lord:“ Son of man, the people of Israel are the worthless slag that remains after silver is smelted. They are the dross that is left over— a useless mixture of copper, tin, iron, and lead.So tell them,‘ This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Because you are all worthless slag, I will bring you to my crucible in Jerusalem.Just as silver, copper, iron, lead, and tin are melted down in a furnace, I will melt you down in the heat of my fury.I will gather you together and blow the fire of my anger upon you,and you will melt like silver in fierce heat. Then you will know that I, the Lord, have poured out my fury on you.’”Again a message came to me from the Lord:
