And when Herod [the son of Herod the Great – self-named, I’m sure] saw Jesus [the son of God and man], he was exceeding glad: for he was desirous to see him of a long season, because he had heard many things of him; and he hoped to have seen some miracle done by him.
The LORD begins today in the above verse, Luke 23:8, in which He leads us to understand the political environment of the time, its connection to the (Herodian) temple, and these like the darkness covering the modern world. They are written as patterns sent forward for this moment to give understanding, revealing what are obvious courses ahead into solution.
Herod the Great was a tetrarch, a governor, appointed by the Roman Senate, over a portion of ancient Israel. He was the son of Antipater (anti-father), an Edomite (a descendent of Esau), also said to be a practicing (religious) Jew. Among his notable infamous acts, in the pattern of Pharaoh hearing of the coming deliverer (Moses), he, hearing (from the wise men) of the King of the Jews’ birth, ordered every child in Bethlehem under the age of two be put to death.
Herod means he is like a hero (to the Romans – meaning strength, the world powers). As is the current Herod, he was unpopular (said to be the most unpopular ever) among the people he ruled. The Biden rise to power bears all the unmistakable marks of the same corrupt rise, appointed by the Senate (who disregarded evidence of mass voter fraud, abandoned their obligation to object, and failed to correct it). Like Herod, he says he’s a religious follower of God while advocating the killing of the most innocent (now unborn infants), as a means to keep power. In this, he proves himself a child of Antipater (against the Father’s, God’s, commandments).
(Suffer me a moment while I digress: the most deluded of modern religionists are those who vote for a political party that, as a published platform, champions killing tens of millions of unborn human children and thinks they can cover it with their “good” works. They twistedly justify murder with claims of greater compassion in the form of stealing people’s earnings and redistributing them to buy the votes of the slothful. Woe to those who call evil good and good evil. And again, I say WOE! “And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”)
The current church and government powers, like Edom, are enemies mixed among us, destroying us. They’ve joined the globalist communists, one world under the antichrist spirit (against God among us to save us).
In the LORD elaborating, He points to Isaiah 57 describing the righteous removed from these places of evil power. The chapter begins with the translation saying, “The righteous perish, and no man lays it to heart.” The word “lays” is the Hebrew word suwm, meaning to put. We know the “heart” is the center, the foundation of mind-based decisions. “Laying to heart” speaks of the curiosity that leads to investigation and critical consideration, that then, using God-given intellect, abstractly puts the pieces (elements – stoicheion) together in the correct order (dabar), which is understanding.
The following is the post from 10 January 2021:
Sanctify the LORD of hosts himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offense to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
Friends, the state of decline in the world, as we’ve seen, is due to God’s people, more precisely, the leaders who have raised themselves among them and led into desolation, hearing His word but not doing. What if the LORD told you to say something, would you say it or censor Him? The proof is they have heard, are offended, and refusing Him for a great while do so once again.
What part of what He is saying have His people followed? They walk around in mass, almost in total, wearing the mark of their confusion on their face, waiting for events of which they are the proof. The evidence proves they are blind, led there by blind leaders, misleaders who will never awaken them by admitting they are Babylon, the authors of confusion resulting in mass delusion.
Isaiah 8
…O Immanuel.
9 Associate yourselves, O you people, and you shall be broken in pieces; and give ear, all you of far countries: gird yourselves, and you shall be broken in pieces; gird yourselves, and you shall be broken in pieces.
10 Take counsel together, and it shall come to naught; speak the word, and it shall not stand: for God is with us.
11 For the LORD spoke thus to me with a strong hand, and instructed me that I should not walk in the way of this people, saying,
12 Say you not, A confederacy [of the irrational and deluded, those who wear the mark, the mask, showing they follow and kneel to the advice of ignorance {Does this offend you?}], to all them to whom this people shall say, A confederacy; neither fear you their fear, nor be afraid.
13 Sanctify the LORD of hosts himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.
14 And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offense to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
15 And many among them shall stumble, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken.
16 Bind up the testimony [this word of God, which is His seal], seal the law among my disciples.
17 And I will wait upon the LORD, that hides his face from the house of Jacob [see Jacob as defined above], and I will look for him.
18 Behold, I and the children whom the LORD has given me are for signs [the standard lifted to show the way] and for wonders in Israel from the LORD of hosts, which dwells in mount Zion.
19 And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits [are the voice of the known dead], and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter [broad-casting their spells to mislead]: should not a people seek unto their God? [should they be looking] for the living to the dead [the familiar spirit – known liars telling known lies]?
20 [They should be looking] To the law and to the [this] testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light [understanding] in them.
21 And they shall pass through it, hardly bestead and hungry [because they refuse this manna]: and it shall come to pass, that when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse their king and their God, and [in the resulting ignorance] look upward [and see darkness].
22 And they shall look unto the earth; and behold trouble and darkness [ignorance], dimness of anguish; and they shall be driven to darkness [into ever greater delusion, as they have].
Isaiah 9
2 The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them has the light shined.
3 You have multiplied the nation, and not increased the joy: they joy before you according to the joy in harvest, and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil.
4 For you have broken the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian.
5 For every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood; but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire.
6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
7 Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.
8 The LORD sent a word into Jacob, and it has lighted upon Israel.
We know what follows the above verses is the LORD speaking of the misleaders of His people at large, who’ve led them into destruction. They say they (the misleaders He calls briers and thorns, the growth of neglect) will rebuild upon their same flawed and confused foundation, which will, as they have, inevitably destroy again. These men are the worthless (bohuw) stones and cedars, with ideas and ways that are foreign to God’s, whose advice exalts itself above His truth.
Isaiah 9
10 The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycamores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars.
11 Therefore the LORD shall set up the adversaries of Rezin [strong] against him [the misleaders of God’s people who are rejecting Him and are offended at His word], and join his enemies together;
12 The Syrians before, and the Philistines behind [the communists and foreign invaders]; and they shall devour Israel with open mouth [as they are]. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.
13 For the people turn not unto him that smites them, neither do they seek the LORD of hosts.
14 Therefore the LORD will cut off from Israel head and tail, branch and rush, in one day.
15 The ancient and honorable, he is the head; and the prophet that teaches lies, he is the tail.
16 For the leaders of this people cause them to err; and they that are led of them are destroyed.
17 Therefore the LORD shall have no joy in their young men, neither shall have mercy on their fatherless and widows: for every one is a hypocrite and an evildoer, and every mouth speaks folly. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.
18 For wickedness burns as the fire: it shall devour the briers and thorns, and shall kindle in the thickets of the forest, and they shall mount up like the lifting up of smoke.
The word rendered “offense,” in today’s title verses from Isaiah 8:13 & 14, used to tell of how God’s people stumble and are ensnared by Him, is from the Hebrew word mikshowl. It’s said to be the “masculine from 3782 [kashal]; a stumbling-block, literally or figuratively (obstacle, enticement (specifically an idol), scruple).” Kashal is said to mean, “to totter or waver (through weakness of the legs, especially the ankles); by implication, to falter, stumble, to faint or fall.” The deeper meaning of these comes through their association with the word kasah, meaning, “to grow fat (i.e. be covered with flesh).”
These words are telling of this the stumbling-stone (Christ, God in man speaking and working) at which these men stumble and are offended, blinded by his covering of flesh they can never accept, by the idols they’ve created and with which they’ve blinded the world. Their idols, their words, have defile every place and person, and yet they declare the word of the LORD unholy?
Leviticus 19
2 Speak unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them, You shall be holy: for I the LORD your God am holy.
3 You shall fear every man his mother, and his father, and keep my Sabbaths [when I interrupt the world, to correct it]: I am the LORD your God.
4 Turn you not unto idols, nor make to yourselves molten gods: I am the LORD your God.
5 And if you offer a sacrifice of peace offerings unto the LORD, you shall offer it at your own will.
6 It shall be eaten the same day you offer it, and on the morrow: and if ought remain until the third day, it shall be burnt in the fire.
7 And if it be eaten at all on the third day, it is abominable; it [your words] shall not be accepted.
8 Therefore every one that eats it shall bear his iniquity, because he [with his word, his idols] has profaned the hallowed thing of the LORD: and that soul shall be cut off from among his people.
9 And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not wholly reap the corners of your field, neither shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest.
10 And you shall not glean your vineyard, neither shall you gather every grape of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and stranger: I am the LORD your God.
11 You shall not steal, neither deal falsely, neither lie one to another [as the false teachers and false prophets among you in church and state have done and continue to do].
12 And you shall not swear by my name falsely [saying the LORD says, when you are speaking your own creations], neither shall you profane the name of your God: I am the LORD.
13 You shall not defraud your neighbor, neither rob him [by taxing him to buy votes and satisfy your own lusts]: the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with you all night until the morning.
14 You shall not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling-block [mikshowl] before the blind, but shall fear your God: I am the LORD.
15 You shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: you shall not respect the person of the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor.
16 You shall not go up and down as a talebearer among your people: neither shall you stand against the blood of your neighbor; I am the LORD.
17 You shall not hate your brother in your heart: you shall in any wise rebuke your neighbor, and not suffer sin upon him.
18 You shall not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.
The only other time Isaiah uses the word mikshowl, in Isaiah 57:14, it’s in telling of the righteous “taken away,” thoroughly purged from public access, of which the LORD speaks precisely. The words in verse 1 describing this are, rendered “perish,” ‘abad, meaning, “to wander away, i.e. lose oneself; by implication to perish (causative, destroy),” and rendered “taken away,” ‘acaph, meaning, “to gather for any purpose; hence, to receive, take away, i.e. remove (destroy, leave behind, put up, restore, etc.).”
Isaiah 43
8 Bring forth the blind people that have eyes, and the deaf that have ears.
9 Let all the nations be gathered together, and let the people be assembled [‘acaph]: who among them can declare this, and show us former things? let them bring forth their witnesses, that they may be justified: or let them hear, and say, It is truth.
10 You are my witnesses, says the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that you may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me.
11 I, even I, am the LORD; and beside me there is no savior.
Isaiah 57
1 The righteous perish [‘abad], and no man lays it to heart: and merciful men are taken away [‘acaph], none considering that the righteous is taken away [‘acaph] from the evil to come.
2 He shall enter into peace: they shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness.
3 But draw near hither, you sons of the sorceress, the seed of the adulterer and the whore.
4 Against whom do you sport yourselves? against whom make you a wide mouth, and draw out the tongue? are you not children of transgression, a seed of falsehood.
5 Enflaming yourselves with idols under every green tree, slaying the children in the valleys under the cliffs of the rocks?
6 Among the smooth stones of the stream is your portion; they, they are your lot: even to them have you poured a drink offering, you have offered a meat offering. Should I receive comfort in these?
7 Upon a lofty and high mountain have you set your bed: even thither went you up to offer sacrifice.
8 Behind the doors also and the posts have you set up your remembrance: for you have discovered yourself to another than me, and are gone up; you have enlarged your bed, and made you a covenant with them; you loved their bed where you saw it.
9 And you went to the king [Obama – the antichrist, who’s destroyed the world] with ointment, and didst increase your perfumes, and didst send your messengers far off, and didst debase yourself even unto hell.
10 You are wearied in the greatness of your way; yet said you not, There is no hope: you have found the life of your hand; therefore you were not grieved.
11 And of whom have you been afraid or feared, that you have lied, and have not remembered me, nor laid it to your heart? have not I held my peace even of old, and you fear me not?
12 I will declare your righteousness, and your works; for they shall not profit you.
13 When you cry, let your companies deliver you; but the wind shall carry them all away; vanity shall take them: but he that puts his trust in me shall possess the land, and shall inherit my holy mountain;
14 And shall say, Cast you up, cast you up, prepare the way, take up the stumbling-block [mikshowl] out of the way of my people.
15 For thus says the high and lofty One that inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.
16 For I will not contend for ever, neither will I be always wroth: for the spirit should fail before me, and the souls which I have made.
17 For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth, and smote him: I hid me, and was wroth, and he went on frowardly [twisting and perverting truth] in the way of his heart [his corrupt foundational thoughts – the basic elements of his thinking].
18 I have seen his ways, and will heal him: I will lead him also, and restore comforts unto him and to his mourners.
19 I create the fruit of the lips; Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, says the LORD; and I will heal him.
20 But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters [words] cast up mire and dirt.
21 There is no peace, says my God, to the wicked.
Ezekiel 33
24 Son of man, they that inhabit those wastes of the land of Israel speak, saying, Abraham was one, and he inherited the land: but we are many; the land is given us for inheritance.
25 Wherefore say unto them, Thus says the LORD God; You eat with the blood, and lift up your eyes toward your idols, and shed blood: and shall you possess the land?
26 You stand upon your sword, you work abomination, and you defile every one his neighbor’s wife: and shall you possess the land?
27 Say you thus unto them, Thus says the LORD God; As I live, surely they that are in the wastes shall fall by the sword, and him that is in the open field will I give to the beasts to be devoured, and they that be in the forts and in the caves shall die of the pestilence.
28 For I will lay the land most desolate, and the pomp of her strength shall cease; and the mountains of Israel shall be desolate, that none shall pass through.
29 Then shall they know that I am the LORD, when I have laid the land most desolate because of all their abominations which they have committed.
30 Also, you son of man, the children of your people still are talking against you by the walls and in the doors of the houses, and speak one to another, every one to his brother, saying, Come, I pray you, and hear what is the word that comes forth from the LORD.
31 And they come unto you as the people comes, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear your words, but they will not do them: for with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goes after their covetousness.
32 And, lo, you are unto them as a very lovely song of one that has a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument: for they hear your words, but they do them not.
33 And when this comes to pass, (lo, it will come,) then shall they know that a prophet has been among them.
Jeremiah uses the word mikshowl one time, in Jeremiah 6:21, as the LORD is speaking of the church, who is said to be the “queen of heaven,” and “Sheba” (seven), that has now become a “den of robbers,” and is in rebellion against the LORD. It’s the same later, in Jeremiah 15:9, spoken of, saying, “She that has borne seven languishes: she has given up the ghost; her sun is gone down while it was yet day: she has been ashamed and confounded: and the residue of them will I deliver to the sword before their enemies, says the LORD.” As it is this day! Amen!
Jeremiah 6
15 Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore they shall fall among them that fall: at the time that I visit them they shall be cast down, says the LORD.
16 Thus says the LORD, Stand you in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and you shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein.
17 Also I set watchmen over you, saying, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet. But they said, We will not hearken.
18 Therefore hear, you nations, and know, O congregation, what is among them.
19 Hear, O earth: behold, I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not hearkened unto my words, nor to my law, but rejected it.
20 To what purpose comes there to me incense from Sheba [seven – the fallen church at large], and the sweet cane from a far country? your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices sweet unto me.
21 Therefore thus says the LORD, Behold, I will lay stumbling-blocks [mikshowl] before this people, and the fathers and the sons together shall fall upon them; the neighbor and his friend shall perish [‘abad].
22 Thus says the LORD, Behold, a people comes from the north country, and a great nation shall be raised from the sides of the earth.
23 They shall lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel, and have no mercy; their voice roars like the sea; and they ride upon horses, set in array as men for war against you, O daughter of Zion.
24 We have heard the fame thereof: our hands wax feeble: anguish has taken hold of us, and pain, as of a woman in travail.
25 Go not forth into the field, nor walk by the way; for the sword of the enemy and fear is on every side.
26 O daughter of my people, gird you with sackcloth, and wallow yourself in ashes: make you mourning, as for an only son, most bitter lamentation: for the spoiler shall suddenly come upon us.
27 I have set you for a tower and a fortress among my people, that you may know and try their way.
28 They are all grievous revolters, walking with slanders: they are brass and iron; they are all corrupters.
29 The bellows are burned, the lead is consumed of the fire; the founder melts in vain: for the wicked are not plucked away.
30 Reprobate silver shall men call them, because the LORD has rejected them.
Jeremiah 7
1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,
2 Stand in the gate of the LORD’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the LORD, all you of Judah, that enter in at these gates to worship the LORD.
3 Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place.
4 Trust you not in lying words, saying, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, are these.
5 For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings; if you thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor;
6 If you oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt:
7 Then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, forever and ever.
8 Behold, you trust in lying words, that cannot profit.
9 Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom you know not;
10 And come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations?
11 Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen it, says the LORD.
12 But go you now unto my place which was in Shiloh, where I set my name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel.
13 And now, because you have done all these works, says the LORD, and I spoke unto you, rising up early and speaking, but you heard not; and I called you, but you answered not;
14 Therefore will I do unto this house, which is called by my name, wherein you trust, and unto the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh.
15 And I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brethren, even the whole seed of Ephraim.
16 Therefore pray not you for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me: for I will not hear you.
17 See you not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?
18 The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.
19 Do they provoke me to anger? says the LORD: do they not provoke themselves to the confusion of their own faces?
20 Therefore thus says the LORD God; Behold, mine anger and my fury shall be poured out upon this place, upon man, and upon beast, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched.
21 Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Put your burnt offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat flesh.
22 For I spoke not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices:
23 But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people: and walk you in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you.
24 But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward.
25 Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt unto this day I have even sent unto you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them:
26 Yet they hearkened not unto me, nor inclined their ear, but hardened their neck: they did worse than their fathers.
27 Therefore you shall speak all these words unto them; but they will not hearken to you: you shall also call unto them; but they will not answer you.
28 But you shall say unto them, This is a nation that obeyed not the voice of the LORD their God, nor received correction: truth is perished, and is cut off from their mouth.
29 Cut off your hair, O Jerusalem, and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on high places; for the LORD has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.
The final eight of the fourteen times mikshowl appears are in Ezekiel.
Ezekiel 3
17 Son of man, I have made you a watchman unto the house of Israel: therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me.
18 When I say unto the wicked, You shall surely die; and you give him not warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at your hand.
19 Yet if you warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul.
20 Again, When a righteous man does turn from his righteousness, and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumbling-block [mikshowl] before him, he shall die: because you have not given him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteousness which he has done shall not be remembered; but his blood will I require at your hand.
21 Nevertheless if you warn the righteous man, that the righteous sin not, and he does not sin, he shall surely live, because he is warned; also you have delivered your soul.
22 And the hand of the LORD was there upon me; and he said unto me, Arise, go forth into the plain, and I will there talk with you.
23 Then I arose, and went forth into the plain: and, behold, the glory of the LORD stood there, as the glory which I saw by the river of Chebar: and I fell on my face.
24 Then the spirit entered into me, and set me upon my feet, and spoke with me, and said unto me, Go, shut yourself within your house.
25 But you, O son of man, behold, they shall put bands upon you, and shall bind you with them, and you shall not go out among them:
26 And I will make your tongue cleave to the roof of your mouth, that you shall be dumb, and shall not be to them a reprover: for they are a rebellious house.
27 But when I speak with you, I will open your mouth, and you shall say unto them, Thus says the LORD God; He that hears, let him hear; and he that forbears, let him forbear: for they are a rebellious house.
Ezekiel 14
3 Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their heart, and put the stumbling-block [mikshowl] of their iniquity before their face: should I be enquired of at all by them?
4 Therefore speak unto them, and say unto them, Thus says the LORD God; Every man of the house of Israel that setteth up his idols in his heart, and puts the stumbling-block [mikshowl] of his iniquity before his face, and comes to the prophet; I the LORD will answer him that comes according to the multitude of his idols;
5 That I may take the house of Israel in their own heart, because they are all estranged from me through their idols.
6 Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus says the LORD God; Repent, and turn yourselves from your idols; and turn away your faces from all your abominations.
7 For every one of the house of Israel, or of the stranger that sojourns in Israel, which separates himself from me, and sets up his idols in his heart, and puts the stumbling-block [mikshowl] of his iniquity before his face, and comes to a prophet to enquire of him concerning me; I the LORD will answer him by myself:
8 And I will set my face against that man, and will make him a sign and a proverb, and I will cut him off from the midst of my people; and you shall know that I am the LORD.
9 And if the prophet be deceived when he has spoken a thing, I the LORD have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel.
Ezekiel 18
27 Again, when the wicked man turns away from his wickedness that he has committed, and does that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive.
28 Because he considers, and turns away from all his transgressions that he has committed, he shall surely live, he shall not die.
29 Yet says the house of Israel, The way of the LORD is not equal. O house of Israel, are not my ways equal? are not your ways unequal?
30 Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, says the LORD God. Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin [mikshowl].
31 Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby you have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will you die, O house of Israel?
32 For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dies, says the LORD God: wherefore turn yourselves, and live you.
Ezekiel 21
14 You therefore, son of man, prophesy, and smite your hands together. and let the sword be doubled the third time, the sword of the slain: it is the sword of the great men that are slain, which enters into their privy chambers.
15 I have set the point of the sword against all their gates, that their heart may faint, and their ruins [mikshowl] be multiplied: ah! it is made bright, it is wrapped up for the slaughter.
16 Go you one way or other, either on the right hand, or on the left, whithersoever your face is set.
17 I will also smite mine hands together, and I will cause my fury to rest: I the LORD have said it.
Ezekiel 44
12 Because they ministered unto them before their idols, and caused the house of Israel to fall [mikshowl] into iniquity; therefore have I lifted up mine hand against them, says the LORD God, and they shall bear their iniquity.
13 And they shall not come near unto me, to do the office of a priest unto me, nor to come near to any of my holy things, in the most holy place: but they shall bear their shame, and their abominations which they have committed.
Psalms 50
1 The mighty God, even the LORD, has spoken, and called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof.
2 Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God has shined.
3 Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence: a fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him.
4 He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people.
5 Gather my saints together [‘acaph] unto me; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.
6 And the heavens shall declare his righteousness: for God is judge himself. Selah.
7 Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel, and I will testify against you: I am God, even your God.
8 I will not reprove you for your sacrifices or your burnt offerings, to have been continually before me.
9 I will take no bullock out of your house, nor he goats out of your folds.
10 For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills.
11 I know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild beasts of the field are mine.
12 If I were hungry, I would not tell you: for the world is mine, and the fullness thereof.
13 Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?
14 Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay your vows unto the Most High:
15 And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.
16 But unto the wicked God says, What have you to do to declare my statutes, or that you should take my covenant in your mouth?
17 Seeing you hate instruction, and cast my words behind you.
18 When you saw a thief, then you consented with him, and have been partaker with adulterers.
19 You give your mouth to evil, and your tongue frame deceit.
20 You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your own mother’s son.
21 These things have you done, and I kept silence; you thought that I was altogether such an one as yourself: but I will reprove you, and set them in order before your eyes.
22 Now consider this, you that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver.
23 Whoso offers praise glorifies me: and to him that orders his conversation aright will I show the salvation of God.
