Have you not cast out the priests of the LORD, the sons of Aaron, and the Levites, and have made yourselves priests after the manner of the nations of other lands? so that whosoever comes to consecrate himself with a young bullock and seven rams, the same may be a priest of them that are no gods.
Pour out your fury upon the nations that know you not, and upon the families that call not on your name: for they have eaten up Jacob, and devoured him, and consumed him, and have made his habitation desolate.
How shall I pardon you for this? your children have forsaken me, and sworn by them that are no gods: when I had fed them to the full, they then committed adultery, and assembled themselves by troops in the harlots’ houses.
For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore you ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.
As concerning therefore the eating of those things that are offered in sacrifice unto idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no other God but one.
Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:
And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom you will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.
And Joshua said unto all the people, Thus says the LORD God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the River in former times, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nahor: and they served other gods.
For the time past of our life will suffice us to have done the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in licentiousness, lusts, excess of wine, reveling, carousing, and abominable idolatries:
Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the children of God: therefore the world knows us not, because it knew him not.