Elijah answered, “I haven’t troubled Israel. You and your father’s family have done it by disobeying the Lord’s commands and following the various Baal gods.
It wasn’t enough that he committed the same sins as Jeroboam (Nebat’s son). He also married Jezebel, daughter of King Ethbaal of Sidon. Ahab then served and worshiped Baal.
They will answer ⌞themselves⌟, ‘They abandoned the Lord their God, who brought their ancestors out of Egypt. They adopted other gods, worshiped, and served them. That is why the Lord brought this disaster on them.’ ”
Azariah went to Asa and said to him, “Listen to me, Asa and all you men from Judah and Benjamin. The Lord is with you when you are with him. If you will dedicate your lives to serving him, he will accept you. But if you abandon him, he will abandon you.
“My people have done two things wrong. They have abandoned me, the fountain of life-giving water. They have also dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that can’t hold water.
Your own wickedness will correct you, and your unfaithful ways will punish you. You should know and see how evil and bitter it is for you if you abandon the Lord your God and do not fear me,” declares the Almighty Lord of Armies.
Then the officials said to the king, “Have this man put to death. He discourages the soldiers who are left in this city and all the people by telling them such things. This man is not trying to help these people; he’s trying to hurt them.”
The Lord said to Moses, “Soon you are going to lie down in death with your ancestors. When these people enter the land and are living among the foreigners there, they will chase after foreign gods as though they were prostitutes. They will abandon me and reject the promise I made to them.