For he built up again the high places which Hezeki´ah his father had destroyed; and he reared up altars for Ba´al, and made a grove, as did Ahab king of Israel; and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served them.
but thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Per´izzites, the Hivites, and the Jeb´usites; as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee:
When thou shalt besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, thou shalt not destroy the trees thereof by forcing an axe against them: for thou mayest eat of them, and thou shalt not cut them down (for the tree of the field is man's life) to employ them in the siege:
Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart, dost thou go to possess their land: but for the wickedness of these nations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee, and that he may perform the word which the Lord sware unto thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
know for a certainty that the Lord your God will no more drive out any of these nations from before you; but they shall be snares and traps unto you, and scourges in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until ye perish from off this good land which the Lord your God hath given you.