know for certain that the Lord your God will not continue to drive these nations out before you. They will become a snare and a trap for you, a sharp stick for your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you disappear from this good land the Lord your God has given you.
Then you will take some of their daughters as brides for your sons. Their daughters will prostitute themselves with their gods and cause your sons to prostitute themselves with their gods.
You are not going to take possession of their land because of your righteousness or your integrity. Instead, the Lord your God will drive out these nations before you because of their wickedness, in order to fulfil the promise he swore to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
‘When you lay siege to a city for a long time, fighting against it in order to capture it, do not destroy its trees by putting an axe to them, because you can get food from them. Do not cut them down. Are trees of the field human, to come under siege by you?
He rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had destroyed and re-established the altars for Baal. He made an Asherah, as King Ahab of Israel had done; he also bowed in worship to all the stars in the sky and served them.