Profession

The umbrella collects the act of professing — declaring, claiming, asserting publicly — and the two scope verses both keep the focus on the gap between what is professed and what is actually so.

False Profession

A proverb takes up everyday self-promotion. "Most of man will proclaim every one his own kindness; But a faithful man who can find?" (Pr 20:6). The first line records the common posture: each person broadcasts his own goodness. The second line poses the counter-question that exposes it — the proclaimers are many, but the genuinely faithful are rare.

Hollow Claim of Knowing God

Hosea hears Israel turning the same impulse upward. In a moment of distress they appeal to the deity they have neglected: "They will cry to me, My God, we Israel know you" (Ho 8:2). The cry sounds like a profession of covenant relationship — my God, we know you — but the surrounding oracle of Hosea places it in Israel's mouth as a claim made just before the breach of covenant catches up with them. The two verses together set the umbrella's note: a profession on its own is no proof of the thing professed.