Bible Verses About Impenitence

O Hope of Israel, its Savior in times of distress, why are You like a stranger in the land, like a traveler who stays but a night?

Why are You like a man taken by surprise, like a warrior powerless to save? Yet You are among us, O LORD, and we are called by Your name. Do not forsake us!

This is what the LORD says about this people: “Truly they love to wander; they have not restrained their feet. So the LORD does not accept them; He will now remember their guilt and call their sins to account.”

Then the LORD said to me, “Do not pray for the well-being of this people.

Although they may fast, I will not listen to their cry; although they may offer burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Instead, I will finish them off by sword and famine and plague.”

“Ah, Lord GOD!” I replied, “Look, the prophets are telling them, ‘You will not see the sword or suffer famine, but I will give you lasting peace in this place.’”

“The prophets are prophesying lies in My name,” replied the LORD. “I did not send them or appoint them or speak to them. They are prophesying to you a false vision, a worthless divination, the futility and delusion of their own minds.

Therefore this is what the LORD says about the prophets who prophesy in My name: I did not send them, yet they say, ‘No sword or famine will touch this land.’ By sword and famine these very prophets will meet their end!

And the people to whom they prophesy will be thrown into the streets of Jerusalem because of famine and sword. There will be no one to bury them or their wives, their sons or their daughters. I will pour out their own evil upon them.

You have forsaken Me, declares the LORD. You have turned your back. So I will stretch out My hand against you and I will destroy you; I am weary of showing compassion.

I will scatter them with a winnowing fork at the gates of the land. I will bereave and destroy My people who have not turned from their ways.

And you are to tell them that this is what the LORD says: ‘If you do not listen to Me and walk in My law, which I have set before you,

and if you do not listen to the words of My servants the prophets, whom I have sent you again and again even though you did not listen,

then I will make this house like Shiloh, and I will make this city an object of cursing among all the nations of the earth.’”

The words of Jonadab son of Rechab have been carried out. He commanded his sons not to drink wine, and they have not drunk it to this very day because they have obeyed the command of their forefather. But I have spoken to you again and again, and you have not obeyed Me!

Again and again I have sent you all My servants the prophets, proclaiming: ‘Turn now, each of you, from your wicked ways, and correct your actions. Do not go after other gods to serve them. Live in the land that I have given to you and your fathers.’ But you have not inclined your ear or listened to Me.

Yes, the sons of Jonadab son of Rechab carried out the command their forefather gave them, but these people have not listened to Me.

Therefore this is what the LORD God of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: ‘Behold, I will bring to Judah and to all the residents of Jerusalem all the disaster I have pronounced against them, because I have spoken to them but they have not obeyed, and I have called to them but they have not answered.’”

“As for the word you have spoken to us in the name of the LORD, we will not listen to you!

Instead, we will do everything we vowed to do: We will burn incense to the Queen of Heaven and offer drink offerings to her, just as we, our fathers, our kings, and our officials did in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. At that time we had plenty of food and good things, and we saw no disaster.

“Son of man,” He said to me, “eat what you find here. Eat this scroll, then go and speak to the house of Israel.”

So I opened my mouth, and He fed me the scroll.

“Son of man,” He said to me, “eat and fill your stomach with this scroll I am giving you.” So I ate, and it was as sweet as honey in my mouth.

Then He said to me, “Son of man, go now to the house of Israel and speak My words to them.

For you are not being sent to a people of unfamiliar speech or difficult language, but to the house of Israel—