Condescension of God: Expostulates with Backsliding Israel
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Isaiah 41:21–24
“Present your case,” says the LORD. “Submit your arguments,” says the King of Jacob. / “Let them come and tell us what will happen. Tell the former things, so that we may reflect on them and know the outcome. Or announce to us what is coming. / Tell us the things that are to come, so that we may know that you are gods. Yes, do something good or evil, that we may look on together in dismay.
Isaiah 43:1–19
Now this is what the LORD says—He who created you, O Jacob, and He who formed you, O Israel: “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; you are Mine! / When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you go through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched; the flames will not set you ablaze. / For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior; I give Egypt for your ransom, Cush and Seba in your place.
Isaiah 65:1–16
“I revealed Myself to those who did not ask for Me; I was found by those who did not seek Me. To a nation that did not call My name, I said, ‘Here I am! Here I am!’ / All day long I have held out My hands to an obstinate people who walk in the wrong path, who follow their own imaginations, / to a people who continually provoke Me to My face, sacrificing in the gardens and burning incense on altars of brick,
Jeremiah 3:1–15
“If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him to marry another, can he ever return to her? Would not such a land be completely defiled? But you have played the harlot with many lovers—and you would return to Me?” declares the LORD. / “Lift up your eyes to the barren heights and see. Is there any place where you have not been violated? You sat beside the highways waiting for your lovers, like a nomad in the desert. You have defiled the land with your prostitution and wickedness. / Therefore the showers have been withheld, and no spring rains have fallen. Yet you have the brazen look of a prostitute; you refuse to be ashamed.
Jeremiah 4:1–31
“If you will return, O Israel, return to Me,” declares the LORD. “If you will remove your detestable idols from My sight and no longer waver, / and if you can swear, ‘As surely as the LORD lives,’ in truth, in justice, and in righteousness, then the nations will be blessed by Him, and in Him they will glory.” / For this is what the LORD says to the men of Judah and Jerusalem: “Break up your unplowed ground, and do not sow among the thorns.
Jeremiah 7:1–34
This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, / “Stand in the gate of the house of the LORD and proclaim this message: Hear the word of the LORD, all you people of Judah who enter through these gates to worship the LORD. / Thus says the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel: Correct your ways and deeds, and I will let you live in this place.
Ezekiel 18:25–32
Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Hear now, O house of Israel: Is it My way that is unjust? Is it not your ways that are unjust? / If a righteous man turns from his righteousness and practices iniquity, he will die for this. He will die because of the iniquity he has committed. / But if a wicked man turns from the wickedness he has committed and does what is just and right, he will save his life.
Ezekiel 33:10–20
Now as for you, son of man, tell the house of Israel that this is what they have said: ‘Our transgressions and our sins are heavy upon us, and we are wasting away because of them! How can we live?’ / Say to them: ‘As surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked should turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?’ / Therefore, son of man, say to your people: ‘The righteousness of the righteous man will not deliver him in the day of his transgression; neither will the wickedness of the wicked man cause him to stumble on the day he turns from his wickedness. Nor will the righteous man be able to survive by his righteousness on the day he sins.’
Hosea 2:1
“Say of your brothers, ‘My people,’ and of your sisters, ‘My loved one.’
Micah 6:1–9
Hear now what the LORD says: “Arise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice. / Hear, O mountains, the LORD’s indictment, you enduring foundations of the earth. For the LORD has a case against His people, and He will argue it against Israel: / ‘My people, what have I done to you? Testify against Me how I have wearied you!
Malachi 3:7–15
Yet from the days of your fathers, you have turned away from My statutes and have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you,” says the LORD of Hosts. “But you ask, ‘How can we return?’ / Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing Me! But you ask, ‘How do we rob You?’ In tithes and offerings. / You are cursed with a curse, yet you—the whole nation—are still robbing Me.