“They have made sovereigns, but not from Me. They have made rulers, but I have not known. From their silver and gold they made idols for themselves, so that they are cut off.
So the sovereign took counsel and made two calves of gold, and said to the people, “It is too much for you to go up to Yerushalayim. See, your mighty ones, O Yisra’ĕl, which brought you up from the land of Mitsrayim!”
And it came to be, as though it had been a light matter for him to walk in the sins of Yaroḇ‛am son of Neḇat, that he took as wife Izeḇel the daughter of Ethba‛al, sovereign of the Tsiḏonians. And he went and served Ba‛al and bowed himself to it,
“Cast away from you all the transgressions, by which you have transgressed, and make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. For why should you die, O house of Yisra’ĕl?
Neḇuḵaḏnetstsar the sovereign made an image of gold, whose height was sixty cubits and its width six cubits. He set it up in the plain of Dura, in the province of Baḇel.
And now they sin more and more, and make for themselves moulded images from their silver, idols according to their skill, all of them the work of craftsmen. They say of them, “Let the men who slaughter kiss the calves!”
When once the Master of the house has risen up and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock at the door, saying, ‘Master, Master, open for us,’ and He shall answer and say to you, ‘I do not know you, where you are from,’ ”
But now after you have known Elohim, or rather are known by Elohim, how do you turn again to the weak and poor elementary matters, to which you wish to be enslaved again?