Listen to advice and receive discipline, that you may become wise by the end of your life.

If you stop listening to instruction, my child, you will stray from the words of knowledge.

Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him.

When I saw this, I gave careful consideration to it; I received instruction from what I saw:

The people of those nations are both stupid and foolish. Instruction from a wooden idol is worthless!

For the commandments are like a lamp, instruction is like a light, and rebukes of discipline are like the road leading to life,

Suddenly he went after her like an ox that goes to the slaughter, like a stag prancing into a trapper’s snare

Do not withhold discipline from a child; even if you strike him with the rod, he will not die.

Here is a message about Damascus: “Look, Damascus is no longer a city, it is a heap of ruins!

He was wounded because of our rebellious deeds, crushed because of our sins; he endured punishment that made us well; because of his wounds we have been healed.

“It did no good for me to punish your people. They did not respond to such correction. You slaughtered your prophets like a voracious lion.”

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.

So tell them: ‘This is a nation that has not obeyed the Lord their God and has not accepted correction. Faithfulness is nowhere to be found in it. These people do not even profess it anymore.

Your ancestors, however, did not listen to me or pay any attention to me. They stubbornly refused to pay attention or to respond to any discipline.’

All your allies have abandoned you. They no longer have any concern for you. For I have attacked you like an enemy would. I have chastened you cruelly. For your wickedness is so great and your sin is so much.

They have turned away from me instead of turning to me. I tried over and over again to instruct them, but they did not listen and respond to correction.

You will be an object of scorn and taunting, a prime example of destruction among the nations around you when I execute judgments against you in anger and raging fury. I, the Lord, have spoken!

She is disobedient; she refuses correction. She does not trust the Lord; she does not seek the advice of her God.

I thought, ‘Certainly you will respect me! Now you will accept correction!’ If she had done so, her home would not be destroyed by all the punishments I have threatened. But they eagerly sinned in everything they did.

Bear in mind today that I am not speaking to your children who have not personally experienced the judgments of the Lord your God, which revealed his greatness, strength, and power.