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God's Message: "Because of the three great sins of Israel - make that four - I'm not putting up with them any longer. They buy and sell upstanding people. People for them are only things - ways of making money. They'd sell a poor man for a pair of shoes. They'd sell their own grandmother!
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They grind the penniless into the dirt, shove the luckless into the ditch. Everyone and his brother sleeps with the 'sacred whore' - a sacrilege against my Holy Name.
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Stuff they've extorted from the poor is piled up at the shrine of their god, While they sit around drinking wine they've conned from their victims.
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"In contrast, I was always on your side. I destroyed the Amorites who confronted you, Amorites with the stature of great cedars, tough as thick oaks. I destroyed them from the top branches down. I destroyed them from the roots up.
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And yes, I'm the One who delivered you from Egypt, led you safely through the wilderness for forty years And then handed you the country of the Amorites like a piece of cake on a platter.
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I raised up some of your young men to be prophets, set aside your best youth for training in holiness. Isn't this so, Israel?" God's Decree.
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"But you made the youth-in-training break training, and you told the young prophets, 'Don't prophesy!'
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You're too much for me. I'm hard-pressed - to the breaking point. I'm like a wagon piled high and overloaded, creaking and groaning.
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"When I go into action, what will you do? There's no place to run no matter how fast you run. The strength of the strong won't count. Fighters won't make it.
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Skilled archers won't make it. Fast runners won't make it. Chariot drivers won't make it.
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Even the bravest of all your warriors Won't make it. He'll run off for dear life, stripped naked." God's Decree.