I will punish her for the days of the Baals, when she burned incense to them and adorned herself with her earrings and her jewelry, and pursued her lovers, but forgot Me, declares the Lord.
Ahaziah fell down through a lattice in his upper chamber that was in Samaria and became ill. So he sent messengers and said to them, “Go, inquire of Baal-Zebub the god of Ekron whether I will recover from this illness.”
He went back and rebuilt the high places that Hezekiah his father had destroyed. He erected altars for Baal, made an Asherah pole as Ahab king of Israel had done, and worshipped all the host of heaven and served them.
But go now, lead the people to the place of which I have spoken to you. Behold, My angel will go before you. Nevertheless in the day when I punish, I will indeed punish them for their sin.”
Because you have forgotten the God of your salvation and have not been mindful of the rock of your strength, therefore you plant pleasant plants and set them with vine slips of a strange god;
your iniquities and the iniquities of your fathers together, says the Lord; because they have burned incense on the mountains and blasphemed Me on the hills, therefore, I will measure their former work into their bosom.
For according to the number of your cities are your gods, O Judah. And according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem you have set up altars to that shameful thing, even altars to burn incense to Baal.
Because My people have forgotten Me, they have burned incense to vain gods and they have stumbled in their ways from the ancient paths, to walk in bypaths, not on a highway,
Therefore thus says the Lord God of Israel against the shepherds that feed My people: You have scattered My flock and driven them away and have not visited them. Behold, I will punish you for your evil deeds, declares the Lord.
Then I will cause to cease from the cities of Judah and from the streets of Jerusalem the voice of laughter and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride; for the land shall become desolate.
The roads to Zion mourn because no one comes to the solemn feasts. All her gates are desolate; her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she herself suffers bitterly.
You have also taken your fair jewels made of My gold and My silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself images of men that you might commit harlotry with them.
In you they have taken bribes to shed blood. You have taken usury and increase, and you have injured your neighbors for gain by extortion, and you have forgotten Me, says the Lord God.
Therefore thus says the Lord God: Because you have forgotten Me and cast Me behind your back, now bear the punishment of your lewdness and your harlotries.
For their mother has played the whore. She that conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, “I will pursue my lovers, who provide my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.”
She will pursue her lovers, but she will not reach them; and she will seek them but will not find them. Then she will say, “I will go and return to my first husband, for it was better for me then than now.”
They sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains, and burn incense upon the hills under oak, poplar, and elm because their shade is good. Therefore your daughters play the whore, and your daughters-in-law commit adultery.
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will reject you from being My priest. And because you have forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your children.
Israel has forgotten his maker and built temples, and Judah has multiplied fortified cities; so I will send a fire upon his cities, and it will devour his palaces.
The days of punishment have come; the days of recompense have come. Israel knows! The prophet is a fool; the man of the spirit is insane, because of your great iniquity and great hatred.
I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into dirges; I will put sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness on every head; I will make it like the mourning for an only child, and its end like a bitter day.
Again the Israelites did evil in the sight of the Lord. They worshipped the Baals, the Ashtoreths, and the gods of Syria, Sidon, Moab, the Ammonites, and the Philistines. They abandoned the Lord and did not serve Him.
“When they forgot the Lord their God, He sold them into the hand of Sisera, captain of the host of Hazor, and into the hand of the Philistines, and into the hand of the king of Moab. And they fought against them.