The king also defiled the high places that were opposite Jerusalem, to the south of the Mount of Destruction, which King Solomon of Israel had built for Ashtoreth, the abhorrent idol of the Sidonians; for Chemosh, the abhorrent idol of Moab; and for Milcom, the detestable idol of the Ammonites.
Judah did what was evil in the Lord’s sight. They provoked him to jealous anger more than all that their ancestors had done with the sins they committed.
Burn the carved images of their gods. Don’t covet the silver and gold on the images and take it for yourself, or else you will be ensnared by it, for it is detestable to the Lord your God.
Do not bow in worship to them, and do not serve them, because I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, bringing the consequences of the fathers’ iniquity on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me,
They have provoked my jealousy with what is not a god; they have enraged me with their worthless idols. So I will provoke their jealousy with what is not a people; I will enrage them with a foolish nation.
I alone declared, saved, and proclaimed – and not some foreign god among you. So you are my witnesses’ – this is the Lord’s declaration – ‘and I am God.
The sons gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead dough to make cakes for the queen of heaven, , and they pour out drink offerings to other gods so that they provoke me to anger.
He stretched out what appeared to be a hand and took me by the hair of my head. Then the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and carried me in visions of God to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the inner gate that faces north, where the offensive statue that provokes jealousy was located.
You behaved more wickedly than all who were before you. In order to anger me, you have proceeded to make for yourself other gods and cast images, but you have flung me behind your back.
They burned incense there on all the high places just like the nations that the Lord had driven out before them had done. They did evil things, angering the Lord.
They sacrificed their sons and daughters in the fire , and practised divination and interpreted omens. They devoted themselves to do what was evil in the Lord’s sight and angered him.
He sacrificed his son in the fire, , practised witchcraft and divination, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did a huge amount of evil in the Lord’s sight, angering him.
Listen #– #the cry of my dear people from a faraway land, ‘Is the Lord no longer in Zion, her King not within her? ’ Why have they angered me with their carved images, with their worthless foreign idols?