And when she had done all these things, I said: Return to me, and she did not return. And her treacherous sister Juda saw,
John Chrysostom
For the evils we have once perpetrated cannot provoke God so much as our being unwilling to make any change in the future. To sin may be a merely human failing, but to continue in the same sin ceases to be human and becomes altogether devilish. For observe how God by the mouth of his prophet blames this more than the other. "For," we read, "I said unto her after she had done all these deeds of fornication, return to me, and yet she returned not." … "Declare you first your iniquities that you may be justified." Now this he demands from us in order to intensify our love toward him.
Imported from an open dataset — not yet checked against the printed edition.