Lord, I know you look for faithfulness. But even when you punish these people, they feel no remorse. Even when you nearly destroy them, they refuse to be corrected. They have become as hardheaded as a rock. They refuse to change their ways.

They did not keep their covenant with God, and they refused to obey his law.

The violence done by the wicked will drag them away because they refuse to do what is right.

What the sluggard desires will kill him, for his hands refuse to work.

Why, then, do these people of Jerusalem continually turn away from me in apostasy? They hold fast to their deception. They refuse to turn back to me.

They do one act of violence after another, and one deceitful thing after another. They refuse to pay attention to me,” says the Lord.

They will return to Egypt! Assyria will rule over them because they refuse to repent!

The Lord who rules over all says, “The people of Israel are oppressed. So too are the people of Judah. All those who took them captive are holding them prisoners. They refuse to set them free.

They have gone back to the evil ways of their ancestors of old who refused to obey what I told them. They, too, have paid allegiance to other gods and worshiped them. Both the nation of Israel and the nation of Judah have violated the covenant I made with their ancestors.