Scripture offers guidance and hope for parents whose children have strayed from the faith. According to Proverbs, training children in the ways of the Lord from a young age can help them remain faithful as adults. However, even when children do go astray, 1 John assures believers that Jesus Christ is an advocate who intercedes on their behalf. The apostle Paul's words in 2 Corinthians remind parents that their own perseverance and faith can be a powerful witness, even in difficult circumstances, and Proverbs encourages trust in God's sovereignty and goodness, even when His ways are not immediately understood.
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Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, yet our inner self is being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary affliction is producing for us an eternal glory that is far beyond comparison. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
When a man’s ways please the LORD, He makes even the man’s enemies live at peace with him.
My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate before the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.
Now we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this surpassingly great power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on all sides, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.
After a few days, the younger son got everything together and journeyed to a distant country, where he squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent all he had, a severe famine swept through that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed the pigs. He longed to fill his belly with the pods the pigs were eating, but no one would give him a thing. Finally he came to his senses and said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have plenty of food? But here I am, starving to death!
If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?
“Return, O faithless children,” declares the LORD, “for I am your master, and I will take you—one from a city and two from a family—and bring you to Zion. Then I will give you shepherds after My own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.” “In those days, when you multiply and increase in the land,” declares the LORD, “they will no longer discuss the ark of the covenant of the LORD. It will never come to mind, and no one will remember it or miss it, nor will another one be made. At that time Jerusalem will be called The Throne of the LORD, and all the nations will be gathered in Jerusalem to honor the name of the LORD. They will no longer follow the stubbornness of their evil hearts. In those days the house of Judah will walk with the house of Israel, and they will come together from the land of the north to the land that I gave to your fathers as an inheritance. Then I said, ‘How I long to make you My sons and give you a desirable land, the most beautiful inheritance of all the nations!’ I thought you would call Me ‘Father’ and never turn away from following Me. But as a woman may betray her husband, so you have betrayed Me, O house of Israel,” declares the LORD. A voice is heard on the barren heights, the children of Israel weeping and begging for mercy, because they have perverted their ways and forgotten the LORD their God. “Return, O faithless children, and I will heal your faithlessness.” “Here we are. We come to You, for You are the LORD our God. Surely deception comes from the hills, and commotion from the mountains. Surely the salvation of Israel is in the LORD our God. From our youth, that shameful god has consumed what our fathers have worked for— their flocks and herds, their sons and daughters.
This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, “Stand in the gate of the house of the LORD and proclaim this message: Hear the word of the LORD, all you people of Judah who enter through these gates to worship the LORD. Thus says the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel: Correct your ways and deeds, and I will let you live in this place. Do not trust in deceptive words, chanting: ‘This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD.’ For if you really correct your ways and deeds, if you act justly toward one another, if you no longer oppress the foreigner and the fatherless and the widow, and if you no longer shed innocent blood in this place or follow other gods to your own harm, then I will let you live in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever. But look, you keep trusting in deceptive words to no avail. Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal, and follow other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before Me in this house, which bears My Name, and say, ‘We are delivered, so we can continue with all these abominations’? Has this house, which bears My Name, become a den of robbers in your sight? Yes, I too have seen it, declares the LORD. But go now to the place in Shiloh where I first made a dwelling for My Name, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of My people Israel. And now, because you have done all these things, declares the LORD, and because I have spoken to you again and again but you would not listen, and I have called to you but you would not answer, therefore what I did to Shiloh I will now do to the house that bears My Name, the house in which you trust, the place that I gave to you and your fathers. And I will cast you out of My presence, just as I have cast out all your brothers, all the descendants of Ephraim. As for you, do not pray for these people, do not offer a plea or petition on their behalf, and do not beg Me, for I will not listen to you. Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The sons gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough to make cakes for the Queen of Heaven; they pour out drink offerings to other gods to provoke Me to anger. But am I the One they are provoking? declares the LORD. Is it not themselves they spite, to their own shame? Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: Behold, My anger and My fury will be poured out on this place, on man and beast, on the trees of the field and the produce of the land, and it will burn and not be extinguished. This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: Add your burnt offerings to your other sacrifices and eat the meat yourselves! For when I brought your fathers out of the land of Egypt, I did not merely command them about burnt offerings and sacrifices, but this is what I commanded them: Obey Me, and I will be your God, and you will be My people. You must walk in all the ways I have commanded you, so that it may go well with you. Yet they did not listen or incline their ear, but they followed the stubborn inclinations of their own evil hearts. They went backward and not forward. From the day your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have sent you all My servants the prophets again and again. Yet they would not listen to Me or incline their ear, but they stiffened their necks and did more evil than their fathers. When you tell them all these things, they will not listen to you. When you call to them, they will not answer. Therefore you must say to them, ‘This is the nation that would not listen to the voice of the LORD their God and would not receive correction. Truth has perished; it has disappeared from their lips. Cut off your hair and throw it away. Raise up a lamentation on the barren heights, for the LORD has rejected and forsaken the generation of His wrath.’ For the people of Judah have done evil in My sight, declares the LORD. They have set up their abominations in the house that bears My Name, and so have defiled it. They have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Hinnom so they could burn their sons and daughters in the fire—something I never commanded, nor did it even enter My mind. So behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when this place will no longer be called Topheth and the Valley of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter. For they will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no more room. The corpses of this people will become food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and there will be no one to scare them away. I will remove from the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem the sounds of joy and gladness and the voices of the bride and bridegroom, for the land will become a wasteland.”
Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith in God, instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And this we will do, if God permits. It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age— and then have fallen away—to be restored to repentance, because they themselves are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting Him to open shame. For land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is tended receives the blessing of God. But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless, and its curse is imminent. In the end it will be burned. Even though we speak like this, beloved, we are convinced of better things in your case—things that accompany salvation. For God is not unjust. He will not forget your work and the love you have shown for His name as you have ministered to the saints and continue to do so. We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, in order to make your hope sure. Then you will not be sluggish, but will imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised. When God made His promise to Abraham, since He had no one greater to swear by, He swore by Himself, saying, “I will surely bless you and multiply your descendants.” And so Abraham, after waiting patiently, obtained the promise. Men swear by someone greater than themselves, and their oath serves as a confirmation to end all argument. So when God wanted to make the unchanging nature of His purpose very clear to the heirs of the promise, He guaranteed it with an oath. Thus by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be strongly encouraged. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where Jesus our forerunner has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.
And we have come to know and believe the love that God has for us. God is love; whoever abides in love abides in God, and God in him.
Thus you nullify the word of God by the tradition you have handed down. And you do so in many such matters.”
In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.
Come, let us return to the LORD. For He has torn us to pieces, but He will heal us; He has wounded us, but He will bind up our wounds. After two days He will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live in His presence. So let us know— let us press on to know the LORD. As surely as the sun rises, He will appear; He will come to us like the rain, like the spring showers that water the earth. What shall I do with you, O Ephraim ? What shall I do with you, O Judah? For your loyalty is like a morning mist, like the early dew that vanishes. Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of My mouth, and My judgments go forth like lightning. For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. But they, like Adam, have transgressed the covenant; there they were unfaithful to Me. Gilead is a city of evildoers, tracked with footprints of blood. Like raiders who lie in ambush, so does a band of priests; they murder on the way to Shechem; surely they have committed atrocities. In the house of Israel I have seen a horrible thing: Ephraim practices prostitution there, and Israel is defiled. Also for you, O Judah, a harvest is appointed, when I restore My people from captivity.