Isaiah 1:19

¹⁵Behold, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and evil. ¹⁶For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways and to keep his commandments, his statutes, and his ordinances, that you may live and multiply, and that the LORD your God may bless you in the land where you go in to possess it.

¹⁰Tell the righteous that it will be well with them, for they will eat the fruit of their deeds.

²⁶You will have plenty to eat and be satisfied, and will praise the name of the LORD, your God, who has dealt wondrously with you; and my people will never again be disappointed.

⁹Having been made perfect, he became to all of those who obey him the author of eternal salvation,

⁶Seek the LORD while he may be found. Call on him while he is near. ⁷Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him, to our God, for he will freely pardon.

¹“Hey! Come, everyone who thirsts, to the waters! Come, he who has no money, buy, and eat! Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. ²Why do you spend money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which doesn’t satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in richness. ³Turn your ear, and come to me. Hear, and your soul will live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.

²⁸But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first, and said, ‘Son, go work today in my vineyard.’ ²⁹He answered, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he changed his mind, and went. ³⁰He came to the second, and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I’m going, sir,’ but he didn’t go. ³¹Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said to him, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Most certainly I tell you that the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering into God’s Kingdom before you.

³²For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you didn’t believe him; but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. When you saw it, you didn’t even repent afterward, that you might believe him.

¹²Go, and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, ‘Return, you backsliding Israel,’ says the LORD; ‘I will not look in anger on you, for I am merciful,’ says the LORD. ‘I will not keep anger forever. ¹³Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have transgressed against the LORD your God, and have scattered your ways to the strangers under every green tree, and you have not obeyed my voice,’” says the LORD. ¹⁴“Return, backsliding children,” says the LORD, “for I am a husband to you. I will take one of you from a city, and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion.

¹⁸“I have surely heard Ephraim grieving thus, ‘You have chastised me, and I was chastised, as an untrained calf. Turn me, and I will be turned, for you are the LORD my God. ¹⁹Surely after that I was turned. I repented. After that I was instructed. I struck my thigh. I was ashamed, yes, even confounded, because I bore the reproach of my youth.’ ²⁰Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a darling child? For as often as I speak against him, I still earnestly remember him. Therefore my heart yearns for him. I will surely have mercy on him,” says the LORD.

¹Israel, return to the LORD your God; for you have fallen because of your sin. ²Take words with you, and return to the LORD. Tell him, “Forgive all our sins, and accept that which is good; so we offer bulls as we vowed of our lips. ³Assyria can’t save us. We won’t ride on horses; neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, ‘Our gods!’ for in you the fatherless finds mercy.” ⁴“I will heal their waywardness. I will love them freely; for my anger is turned away from them.