They have set up kings, but not by me. They have made princes, and I didn't approve. Of their silver and their gold they have made themselves idols, that they may be cut off.
Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold; and he said to them, It is too much for you to go up to Yerushalayim: see your gods, Yisra'el, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt.
It happened, as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Yarov`am the son of Nevat, that he took as wife Izevel the daughter of Etba`al king of the Tzidonim, and went and served Ba`al, and worshiped him.
Cast away from you all your transgressions, in which you have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will you die, house of Yisra'el?
Nevukhadnetzar 1 the king made an image of gold, whose height was sixty cubits, and the breadth of it six cubits: he set it up in the plain of Dura, in the province of Bavel.
Now they sin more and more, and have made themselves molten images of their silver, even idols according to their own understanding, all of them the work of the craftsmen. They say of them, 'They offer human sacrifice and kiss the calves.'
When once the master of the house has risen up, and has shut the door, and you begin to stand outside, and to knock at the door, saying, 'Lord, Lord, open to us!' then he will answer and tell you, 'I don't know you or where you come from.'
But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, why do you turn back again to the weak and miserable elemental principles, to which you desire to be in bondage all over again?