1242 verses about Materialism

“‘“Arabia, and all the princes of Kedar were the merchants of your hand; in lambs, rams, and goats. In these, they were your merchants.

“‘“The traders of Sheba and Raamah were your traders. They traded for your wares with the chief of all spices, and with all precious stones, and gold.

“‘“Haran, Canneh, and Eden, the traders of Sheba, Asshur and Chilmad, were your traders.

These were your traders in choice wares, in wrappings of blue and embroidered work, and in chests of rich clothing, bound with cords and made of cedar, among your merchandise.

“‘“The ships of Tarshish were your caravans for your merchandise. You were replenished and made very glorious in the heart of the seas.

Your riches, your wares, your merchandise, your mariners, your pilots, your repairers of ship seams, the dealers in your merchandise, and all your men of war, who are in you, with all your company which is among you, will fall into the heart of the seas in the day of your ruin.

When your wares went out of the seas, you filled many peoples. You enriched the kings of the earth with the multitude of your riches and of your merchandise.

In the time that you were broken by the seas, in the depths of the waters, your merchandise and all your company fell within you.

“Son of man, tell the prince of Tyre, ‘Thus says the Lord Yahweh: “Because your heart is lifted up, and you have said, ‘I am a god, I sit in the seat of God, in the middle of the seas;’ yet you are man, and not God, though you set your heart as the heart of God—

by your wisdom and by your understanding you have gotten yourself riches, and have gotten gold and silver into your treasures;

by your great wisdom and by your trading you have increased your riches, and your heart is lifted up because of your riches—”

By the multitude of your iniquities, in the unrighteousness of your commerce, you have profaned your sanctuaries. Therefore I have brought out a fire from the middle of you. It has devoured you. I have turned you to ashes on the earth in the sight of all those who see you.

Speak and say, ‘Thus says the Lord Yahweh: “Behold, I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great monster that lies in the middle of his rivers, that has said, ‘My river is my own, and I have made it for myself.’

“Son of man, those who inhabit the waste places in the land of Israel speak, saying, ‘Abraham was one, and he inherited the land; but we are many. The land is given us for inheritance.’

They come to you as the people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear your words, but don’t do them; for with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goes after their gain.

You eat the fat. You clothe yourself with the wool. You kill the fatlings, but you don’t feed the sheep.

to take the plunder and to take prey; to turn your hand against the waste places that are inhabited, and against the people who are gathered out of the nations, who have gotten livestock and goods, who dwell in the middle of the earth.’

Sheba, and Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish, with all the young lions of it, will ask you, ‘Have you come to take the plunder? Have you assembled your company to take the prey, to carry away silver and gold, to take away livestock and goods, to take great plunder?’”’

“You shall have just balances, a just ephah, and a just bath.

Moreover the prince shall not take of the people’s inheritance, to thrust them out of their possession. He shall give inheritance to his sons out of his own possession, that my people not each be scattered from his possession.”’”

As for this image, its head was of fine gold, its breast and its arms of silver, its belly and its thighs of brass,

The king spoke and said, “Is not this great Babylon, which I have built for the royal dwelling place, by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?”

Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand.

Belshazzar, while he tasted the wine, commanded that the golden and silver vessels which Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem be brought to him; that the king and his lords, his wives and his concubines, might drink from them.

Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of God’s house which was at Jerusalem; and the king and his lords, his wives and his concubines, drank from them.

They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone.

The king cried aloud to bring in the enchanters, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers. The king spoke and said to the wise men of Babylon, “Whoever reads this writing, and shows me its interpretation, shall be clothed with purple, and have a chain of gold about his neck, and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom.”

but have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of his house before you, and you and your lords, your wives, and your concubines, have drunk wine from them. You have praised the gods of silver and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which don’t see, or hear, or know; and you have not glorified the God in whose hand your breath is, and whose are all your ways.

But he will have power over the treasures of gold and of silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt. The Libyans and the Ethiopians will be at his steps.

For their mother has played the prostitute. She who conceived them has done shamefully; for she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’

For she did not know that I gave her the grain, the new wine, and the oil, and multiplied to her silver and gold, which they used for Baal.

They have set up kings, but not by me. They have made princes, and I didn’t approve. Of their silver and their gold they have made themselves idols, that they may be cut off.

For Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces; and Judah has multiplied fortified cities; but I will send a fire on his cities, and it will devour its fortresses.”

Israel is a luxuriant vine that produces his fruit. According to the abundance of his fruit he has multiplied his altars. As their land has prospered, they have adorned their sacred stones.

Ephraim feeds on wind, and chases the east wind. He continually multiplies lies and desolation. They make a covenant with Assyria, and oil is carried into Egypt.

A merchant has dishonest scales in his hand. He loves to defraud.

Ephraim said, “Surely I have become rich, I have found myself wealth. In all my wealth they won’t find in me any iniquity that is sin.”

Now they sin more and more, and have made themselves molten images of their silver, even idols according to their own understanding, all of them the work of the craftsmen. They say of them, ‘They offer human sacrifice and kiss the calves.’

According to their pasture, so were they filled; they were filled, and their heart was exalted. Therefore they have forgotten me.

Though he is fruitful among his brothers, an east wind will come, the breath of Yahweh coming up from the wilderness; and his spring will become dry, and his fountain will be dried up. He will plunder the storehouse of treasure.

and have cast lots for my people, and have given a boy for a prostitute, and sold a girl for wine, that they may drink.

Because you have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried my finest treasures into your temples,

Yahweh says: “For three transgressions of Israel, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because they have sold the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes;

and they lay themselves down beside every altar on clothes taken in pledge; and in the house of their God they drink the wine of those who have been fined.

“Indeed they don’t know to do right,” says Yahweh, “Who hoard plunder and loot in their palaces.”

I will strike the winter house with the summer house; and the houses of ivory will perish, and the great houses will have an end,” says Yahweh.

Listen to this word, you cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who tell their husbands, “Bring us drinks!”

Therefore, because you trample on the poor, and take taxes from him of wheat: You have built houses of cut stone, but you will not dwell in them. You have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine.

Woe to those who are at ease in Zion, and to those who are secure on the mountain of Samaria, the notable men of the chief of the nations, to whom the house of Israel come!

Those who put far away the evil day, and cause the seat of violence to come near;

Who lie on beds of ivory, and stretch themselves on their couches, and eat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the middle of the stall;

who strum on the strings of a harp; who invent for themselves instruments of music, like David;

who drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the best oils; but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph.

Therefore they will now go captive with the first who go captive; and the feasting and lounging will end.

you who rejoice in a thing of nothing, who say, ‘Haven’t we taken for ourselves horns by our own strength?’

Hear this, you who desire to swallow up the needy, and cause the poor of the land to fail,

Saying, ‘When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may market wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel large, and dealing falsely with balances of deceit;

that we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes, and sell the sweepings with the wheat?’”

How Esau will be ransacked! How his hidden treasures are sought out!

Don’t enter into the gate of my people in the day of their calamity. Don’t look down on their affliction in the day of their calamity, neither seize their wealth on the day of their calamity.

All her idols will be beaten to pieces, and all her temple gifts will be burned with fire, and all her images I will destroy; for of the hire of a prostitute has she gathered them, and to the hire of a prostitute shall they return.”

They covet fields, and seize them; and houses, and take them away: and they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage.

Therefore you will have no one who divides the land by lot in Yahweh’s assembly.

But lately my people have risen up as an enemy. You strip the robe and clothing from those who pass by without a care, returning from battle.

They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity.

Are there yet treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and a short ephah that is accursed?

Shall I be pure with dishonest scales, and with a bag of deceitful weights?

You shall eat, but not be satisfied. Your humiliation will be within you. You will store up, but not save; and that which you save I will give up to the sword.

Take the plunder of silver. Take the plunder of gold, for there is no end of the store, the glory of all goodly furniture.

You have increased your merchants more than the stars of the skies. The grasshopper strips, and flees away.

Therefore he sacrifices to his net, and burns incense to his dragnet, because by them his life is luxurious, and his food is good.

Yes, moreover, wine is treacherous. A haughty man who doesn’t stay at home, who enlarges his desire as Sheol, and he is like death, and can’t be satisfied, but gathers to himself all nations, and heaps to himself all peoples.

Won’t all these take up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against him, and say, ‘Woe to him who increases that which is not his, and who enriches himself by extortion! How long?’

Won’t your debtors rise up suddenly, and wake up those who make you tremble, and you will be their victim?

Woe to him who gets an evil gain for his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the hand of evil!

For the stone will cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the woodwork will answer it.

Woe to him who builds a town with blood, and establishes a city by iniquity!

“What value does the engraved image have, that its maker has engraved it; the molten image, even the teacher of lies, that he who fashions its form trusts in it, to make mute idols?

Woe to him who says to the wood, ‘Awake!’ or to the mute stone, ‘Arise!’ Shall this teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all within it.

Wail, you inhabitants of Maktesh, for all the people of Canaan are undone! All those who were loaded with silver are cut off.

Their wealth will become a plunder, and their houses a desolation. Yes, they will build houses, but won’t inhabit them. They will plant vineyards, but won’t drink their wine.

Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to deliver them in the day of Yahweh’s wrath, but the whole land will be devoured by the fire of his jealousy; for he will make an end, yes, a terrible end, of all those who dwell in the land.

This is the joyous city that lived carelessly, that said in her heart, “I am, and there is no one besides me.” How she has become a desolation, a place for animals to lie down in! Everyone who passes by her will hiss, and shake their fists.

“Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies waste?

You have sown much, and bring in little. You eat, but you don’t have enough. You drink, but you aren’t filled with drink. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm, and he who earns wages earns wages to put them into a bag with holes in it.”

“You looked for much, and, behold, it came to little; and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why?” says Yahweh of Armies, “Because of my house that lies waste, while each of you is busy with his own house.

The silver is mine, and the gold is mine,’ says Yahweh of Armies.

Through all that time, when one came to a heap of twenty measures, there were only ten. When one came to the wine vat to draw out fifty, there were only twenty.

When you eat, and when you drink, don’t you eat for yourselves, and drink for yourselves?

Tyre built herself a stronghold, and heaped up silver like the dust, and fine gold like the mire of the streets.

Their buyers slaughter them, and go unpunished. Those who sell them say, ‘Blessed be Yahweh, for I am rich;’ and their own shepherds don’t pity them.

Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me! But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In tithes and offerings.

You are cursed with the curse; for you rob me, even this whole nation.

for you lay up a good treasure for yourself against the day of necessity;

Give of your bread to the hungry, and of your garments to those who are naked. Give alms from all your abundance. Don’t let your eye be envious when you give alms.

Don’t be greedy to add money to money; but let it be as refuse compared to our child.

The streets of Jerusalem will be paved with beryl, carbuncle, and stones of Ophir.

and he grew old in honor, and he buried his father-in-law and mother-in-law magnificently, and he inherited their possessions, and his father Tobit’s.

He took camels and asses and mules for their baggage, an exceedingly great multitude, and sheep and oxen and goats without number for their provision,

Behold, our dwellings, and all our country, and all our fields of wheat, and our flocks and herds, and all the sheepfolds of our tents, lie before your face. Use them as it may please you.