Ahaziah fell through the lattice of his roof terrace at Samaria and was injured. So he sent out messengers with the instructions: “Go and inquire of Baalzebub, the god of Ekron, whether I shall recover from this injury.”
He rebuilt the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed. He set up altars to Baal and also made an asherah, as Ahab, king of Israel, had done. He bowed down to the whole host of heaven and served them.
Now, go and lead the people where I have told you. See, my angel will go before you. When it is time for me to punish, I will punish them for their sin.
Truly, you have forgotten the God who saves you, the Rock, your refuge, you have not remembered. Therefore, though you plant plants for the Pleasant One, and set out cuttings for a foreign one,
Your crimes and the crimes of your ancestors as well, says the Lord. Since they burned incense on the mountains, and insulted me on the hills, I will at once pour out in full measure their recompense into their laps.
Yet my people have forgotten me: they offer incense in vain. They stumble off their paths, the ways of old, Traveling on bypaths, not the beaten track.
Therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, against the shepherds who shepherd my people: You have scattered my sheep and driven them away. You have not cared for them, but I will take care to punish your evil deeds.
I will silence the cry of joy, the cry of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; for the land will be turned to rubble.
There are those in you who take bribes to shed blood. You exact interest and usury; you extort profit from your neighbor by violence. But me you have forgotten—oracle of the Lord God.
Or I will strip her naked, leaving her as on the day of her birth; I will make her like the wilderness, make her like an arid land, and let her die of thirst.
Yes, their mother has prostituted herself; she who conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, “I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.”
On the mountaintops they offer sacrifice and on the hills they burn incense, Beneath oak and poplar and terebinth, because of their pleasant shade. Therefore your daughters prostitute themselves, and your daughters-in-law commit adultery.
My people are ruined for lack of knowledge! Since you have rejected knowledge, I will reject you from serving as my priest; Since you have forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your children.
Israel has forgotten his maker and has built palaces. Judah, too, has fortified many cities, but I will send fire upon his cities, to devour their strongholds.
They have come, the days of punishment! they have come, the days of recompense! Let Israel know it! “The prophet is a fool, the man of the spirit is mad!” Because your iniquity is great, great, too, is your hostility.
I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into dirges. I will cover the loins of all with sackcloth and make every head bald. I will make it like the time of mourning for an only child, and its outcome like a day of bitter weeping.
The Israelites again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, serving the Baals and Ashtarts, the gods of Aram, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the Ammonites, and the gods of the Philistines. Since they had abandoned the Lord and would not serve him,
But they forgot the Lord their God; and so the Lord sold them into the power of Sisera, the captain of the army of Hazor, the power of the Philistines, and the power of the king of Moab, who made war against them.