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This is the Message, God's Word: "The city that marches out with a thousand will end up with a hundred. The city that marches out with a hundred will end up with ten. Oh, family of Israel!"
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God's Message to the family of Israel: "Seek me and live.
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Don't fool around at those shrines of Bethel, Don't waste time taking trips to Gilgal, and don't bother going down to Beer-sheba. Gilgal is here today and gone tomorrow and Bethel is all show, no substance."
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So seek God and live! You don't want to end up with nothing to show for your life But a pile of ashes, a house burned to the ground. For God will send just such a fire, and the firefighters will show up too late. Raw Truth Is Never Popular
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Woe to you who turn justice to vinegar and stomp righteousness into the mud.
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Do you realize where you are? You're in a cosmos star-flung with constellations by God, A world God wakes up each morning and puts to bed each night. God dips water from the ocean and gives the land a drink. God, God-revealed, does all this.
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And he can destroy it as easily as make it. He can turn this vast wonder into total waste.
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People hate this kind of talk. Raw truth is never popular.
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But here it is, bluntly spoken: Because you run roughshod over the poor and take the bread right out of their mouths, You're never going to move into the luxury homes you have built. You're never going to drink wine from the expensive vineyards you've planted.
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I know precisely the extent of your violations, the enormity of your sins. Appalling! You bully right-living people, taking bribes right and left and kicking the poor when they're down.
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Justice is a lost cause. Evil is epidemic. Decent people throw up their hands. Protest and rebuke are useless, a waste of breath.