“And you, my son Solomon, accept the God of your father. Serve him completely and willingly, because the Lord knows what is in everyone’s mind. He understands everything you think. If you go to him for help, you will get an answer. But if you turn away from him, he will leave you forever.
Azariah went to meet Asa and said, “Listen to me, Asa and all you people of Judah and Benjamin. The Lord is with you when you are with him. If you obey him, you will find him, but if you leave him, he will leave you.
How terrible! Israel is a nation of sin, a people loaded down with guilt, a group of children doing evil, children who are full of evil. They have left the Lord; they hate God, the Holy One of Israel, and have turned away from him as if he were a stranger.
You might ask yourself, “Why has this happened to me?” It happened because of your many sins. Because of your sins, your skirt was torn off and your body has been treated badly.
The people of Judah have quit following me. They have made this a place for foreign gods. They have burned sacrifices to other gods that neither they, nor their ancestors, nor the kings of Judah had ever known before. They filled this place with the blood of innocent people.
“My people have done two evils: They have turned away from me, the spring of living water. And they have dug their own wells, which are broken wells that cannot hold water.
Your evil will bring punishment to you, and the wrong you have done will teach you a lesson. Think about it and understand that it is a terrible evil to turn away from the Lord your God. It is wrong not to fear me,” says the Lord God All-Powerful.
It is because the people who lived there did evil. They made me angry by burning incense and worshiping other gods that neither they nor you nor your ancestors ever knew.
All this is because of Jacob’s sin, because of the sins of the nation of Israel. What is the place of Jacob’s sin? Isn’t it Samaria? What is Judah’s place of idol worship? Isn’t it Jerusalem?