I heard, but I did not understand. So I said, “Sir, what will happen after these things?”

Many will be purified, made clean, and refined, but the wicked will go on being wicked. None of the wicked will understand, though the wise will understand.

For I will remove the names of the Baal idols from your lips, so that you will never again utter their names!”

Although they bring their flocks and herds to seek the favor of the Lord, They will not find him – he has withdrawn himself from them!

Yet it was I who led Ephraim, I took them by the arm; but they did not acknowledge that I had healed them.

They charge like warriors; they scale walls like soldiers. Each one proceeds on his course; they do not alter their path.

“They do not know how to do what is right.” (The Lord is speaking.) “They store up the spoils of destructive violence in their fortresses.

They drink wine from sacrificial bowls, and pour the very best oils on themselves. Yet they are not concerned over the ruin of Joseph.

Instead, they tried to row back to land, but they were not able to do so because the storm kept growing worse and worse.

Who knows? Perhaps God might be willing to change his mind and relent and turn from his fierce anger so that we might not die.”

But they do not know what the Lord is planning; they do not understand his strategy. He has gathered them like stalks of grain to be threshed at the threshing floor.

I will remove your idols and sacred pillars from your midst; you will no longer worship what your own hands made.

and those who turn their backs on the Lord and do not want the Lord’s help or guidance.”

Joseph was no longer able to control himself before all his attendants, so he cried out, “Make everyone go out from my presence!” No one remained with Joseph when he made himself known to his brothers.

‘I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not close at hand. A star will march forth out of Jacob, and a scepter will rise out of Israel. He will crush the skulls of Moab, and the heads of all the sons of Sheth.

And when he sent you from Kadesh-Barnea and told you, “Go up and possess the land I have given you,” you rebelled against the Lord your God and would neither believe nor obey him.

whenever a prophet speaks in my name and the prediction is not fulfilled, then I have not spoken it; the prophet has presumed to speak it, so you need not fear him.”

You must pay his wage that very day before the sun sets, for he is poor and his life depends on it. Otherwise he will cry out to the Lord against you, and you will be guilty of sin.

I have not eaten anything when I was in mourning, or removed any of it while ceremonially unclean, or offered any of it to the dead; I have obeyed you and have done everything you have commanded me.

The Lord will make you the head and not the tail, and you will always end up at the top and not at the bottom, if you obey his commandments which I am urging you today to be careful to do.