Lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go a whoring after their gods, and do sacrifice unto their gods, and one calls you, and you eat of his sacrifice;
And that which they have need of, both young bullocks, and rams, and lambs, for the burnt offerings of the God of heaven, wheat, salt, wine, and oil, according to the decision of the priests which are at Jerusalem, let it be given them day by day without fail:
Now therefore do not give your daughters to their sons, neither take their daughters for your sons, nor seek their peace or their prosperity for ever: that you may be strong, and eat the good of the land, and leave it for an inheritance to your children for ever.
They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them: they have made themselves a molten calf, and have worshiped it, and have sacrificed to it, and said, These be your gods, O Israel, which have brought you up out of the land of Egypt.
And he said, Behold, I make a covenant: before all your people I will do marvels, such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation: and all the people among which you are shall see the work of the LORD: for it is an awesome thing that I will do with you.
My people ask counsel at their tree trunks, and their staff speaks to them: for the spirit of whoredoms has caused them to err, and they have gone a whoring from being under their God’s care.
And they shall no longer offer their sacrifices to devils, after whom they have gone a whoring. This shall be a statute for ever to them throughout their generations.
And it shall be to you for a fringe, that you may look upon it, and remember all the commandments of the LORD, and do them; and that you do not seek after your own heart and your own eyes, which you use after their inclination to go a whoring:
If any of those who do not believe invite you to a feast, and you are disposed to go; whatever is set before you, eat, asking no question for conscience’ sake.
For if anyone sees you who have knowledge sit at dinner in the idol’s temple, shall not the conscience of him who is weak be encouraged to eat those things which are offered to idols;
Concerning therefore the eating of those things that are offered in sacrifice to idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no other God but one.
However there is not in everyone that knowledge: for some with scruples concerning the idol to this hour eat it as a thing offered to an idol; and their conscience being weak is defiled.
And the LORD said to Moses, Behold, you shall sleep with your fathers; and this people will rise up, and go a whoring after the gods of the strangers of the land, to which they go to be among them, and will forsake me, and break my covenant which I have made with them.
And when the LORD your God shall deliver them before you; you shall strike them, and utterly destroy them; you shall make no covenant with them, nor show mercy to them:
Else if you do at all go back, and cling to the remnant of these nations, even these that remain among you, and shall make marriages with them, and go in unto them, and they to you:
Nevertheless I have a few things against you, because you permit that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed to idols.
And yet they would not listen to their judges, but they went a whoring after other gods, and bowed themselves unto them: they turned quickly out of the way which their fathers walked in, obeying the commandments of the LORD; but they did not do so.