Admit Your God-Defiance

6-10 God spoke to me during the reign of King Josiah: “You have noticed, haven’t you, how fickle Israel has visited every hill and grove of trees as a whore at large? I assumed that after she had gotten it out of her system, she’d come back, but she didn’t. Her flighty sister, Judah, saw what she did. She also saw that because of fickle Israel’s loose morals I threw her out, gave her her walking papers. But that didn’t faze flighty sister Judah. She went out, big as you please, and took up a whore’s life also. She took up cheap sex-and-religion as a sideline diversion, an indulgent recreation, and used anything and anyone, flouting sanity and sanctity alike, stinking up the country. And not once in all this did flighty sister Judah even give me a nod, although she made a show of it from time to time.” God’s Decree.

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I thought that after she had done all this she would return to me but she did not, and her unfaithful sister(A) Judah saw it.(B) I gave faithless Israel(C) her certificate of divorce(D) and sent her away because of all her adulteries. Yet I saw that her unfaithful sister Judah had no fear;(E) she also went out and committed adultery. Because Israel’s immorality mattered so little to her, she defiled the land(F) and committed adultery(G) with stone(H) and wood.(I)

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