lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they prostitute themselves with their gods, and sacrifice to their gods, and someone invites you to eat of his sacrifice.
Whatever they need—whether young bulls, rams, and lambs for the burnt offerings to the God of heaven, or wheat, salt, wine, and oil, according to the appointment of the priests in Jerusalem—let it be given them daily without fail,
Now, therefore, cease giving your daughters as wives to their sons, do not take their daughters to your sons, and never seek their peace or prosperity, that you might grow strong and eat the good of the land and leave it as an eternal inheritance to your children.’
They have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them. They have made for themselves a molded calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed to it, and said, ‘This is your god, O Israel, which has brought you up from the land of Egypt.’ ”
Then He said: Behold, I am making a covenant before all your people. I will do wonders such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation. And all the people among whom you live will see the work of the Lord, for it is a fearful thing that I will do with you.
My people seek counsel from their wood, and their staff informs them. For the spirit of harlotry has led them astray, and they have played the whore in defiance of their God.
Do not rejoice, O Israel! Do not exult like the peoples, for you have played the whore departing from your God. You have loved a prostitute’s wages on every threshing floor.
They shall no more offer their sacrifices to goat demons, after whom they have acted like whores. This shall be a perpetual statute for them throughout their generations.
And it will be for you a tassel, and you will see it, and you will remember all the commandments of the Lord, and you will do them, and you will not follow the lust of your own heart and your own eyes.
If any of those who do not believe invite you to a feast, and you desire to go, eat whatever is set before you, asking no question for the sake of conscience.
For if anyone sees you, who have knowledge, eating in the idol’s temple, shall the conscience of him who is weak not be emboldened to eat those things which are offered to idols,
So concerning the eating of foods 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, not everyone has this knowledge. Some, being accustomed to the idol until now, eat the food as a thing offered to an idol. So their weak conscience is defiled.
The Lord said to Moses, “Behold, you are about to lie down with your fathers. Then this people will rise up and begin to prostitute themselves after the gods of the foreigners of the land, where they are going to be among them, and will forsake Me and break My covenant which I have made with them.
and when the Lord your God delivers them before you and you strike them down, then you must utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them nor show mercy to them.
“For if you should turn and cling to the remainder of these peoples who are left with you, and you intermarry and assimilate with them, and they with you,
“But I have a few things against you: You permit that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce My servants to commit sexual immorality and eat food sacrificed to idols.
Yet they would not listen to their judges, for they prostituted themselves to other gods and worshipped them. They quickly turned aside from the path their fathers had walked, who had obeyed the commandments of the Lord. They did not do as their fathers had done.