13. ‘ “Yet the people of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness. They did not follow my decrees but rejected my laws – by which the person who obeys them will live – and they utterly desecrated my Sabbaths. So I said I would pour out my wrath on them and destroy them in the wilderness.
14. But for the sake of my name I did what would keep it from being profaned in the eyes of the nations in whose sight I had brought them out.
15. Also with uplifted hand I swore to them in the wilderness that I would not bring them into the land I had given them – a land flowing with milk and honey, the most beautiful of all lands –
16. because they rejected my laws and did not follow my decrees and desecrated my Sabbaths. For their hearts were devoted to their idols.
17. Yet I looked on them with pity and did not destroy them or put an end to them in the wilderness.
18. I said to their children in the wilderness, ‘Do not follow the statutes of your parents or keep their laws or defile yourselves with their idols.
19. I am the Lord your God; follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.
20. Keep my Sabbaths holy, that they may be a sign between us. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God.’
21. ‘ “But the children rebelled against me: they did not follow my decrees, they were not careful to keep my laws, of which I said, ‘The person who obeys them will live by them,’ and they desecrated my Sabbaths. So I said I would pour out my wrath on them and spend my anger against them in the wilderness.
22. But I withheld my hand, and for the sake of my name I did what would keep it from being profaned in the eyes of the nations in whose sight I had brought them out.