They offered sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains, and burnt incense upon the hills: under the oak, and the poplar, and the turpentine tree, because the shadow thereof was good: therefore shall your daughters commit fornication, and your spouses shall be adulteresses.
And the Lord said to me in the days of king Josias: Hast thou seen what rebellious Israel hast done? She hath gone out of herself upon every high mountain and under every green tree and hath played the harlot there.
The high places also that were at Jerusalem on the right side of the Mount of Offence, which Solomon king of Israel had built to Astaroth the idol of the Sidonians, and to Chamos the scandal of Moab, and to Melchom the abomination of the children of Ammon, the king defiled.
On condition that you should not make a league with the inhabitants of this land, but should throw down their altars. And you would not hear my voice. Why have you done this?
And all the people of the land went into the temple of Baal, and broke down his altars: and his images they broke in pieces thoroughly. They slew also Mathan the priest of Baal before the altar. And the priest set guards in the house of the Lord.
But if thou wilt answer me: We trust in the Lord our God; Is it not he whose high places and altars Ezechias hath taken away, and hath said to Juda, and Jerusalem: You shall worship before this altar?
Of old time thou hast broken my yoke, thou hast burst my bands, and thou saidst: I will not serve. For on every high hill and under every green, tree thou didst prostitute thyself.
Lift up thy eyes on high, and see where thou hast not prostuted thyself. Thou didst sit in the ways, waiting for them as a robber in the wilderness: and thou hast polluted the land with thy fornications and with thy wickedness.
But yet acknowledge thy iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the Lord thy God: and thou hast scattered thy ways to strangers under every green tree, and hast not heard my voice, saith the Lord.