So the king sought counsel and made two golden calves. He said to them, “You have been going up to Jerusalem long enough! Here are your gods O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.”
Now it was so because the men of Israel had sinned against Adonai their God, who brought them up out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods.
For he rebuilt the shrines that his father Hezekiah had destroyed and he erected altars for Baal and made an Asherah pole, as King Ahab of Israel had done, and bowed down to all the host of heaven and worshipped them.
Hear this, house of Jacob, who are called by the Name of Israel, who came from the wellspring of Judah, who swear by the Name of Adonai and confess the God of Israel— but not in truth or righteousness.
Behind the door and the doorpost you have set up your memorial sign. For away from Me, you uncovered, went up and made your bed wide, and cut covenant with them. You loved their bed— you looked on their nakedness.
“Indeed, long ago I broke your yoke and tore off your bonds. You said, ‘I will not serve!’ Instead, on every high hill and under every green tree you sprawled out as a prostitute.
“If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him to be with another man, will he return to her again? Would not such a land be totally polluted? You are a prostitute with many lovers. Now are you returning to Me?” It is a declaration of Adonai.
You built your lofty place at the head of every street. You made your beauty an abomination. You spread your legs for everyone passing by and multiplied your harlotry.
“But they rebelled against Me and were unwilling to listen to Me. None of them cast away the detestable things that were before their eyes, nor did they forsake the idols of Egypt. So I resolved to pour out My fury upon them, to expend My anger upon them in the midst of the land of Egypt.
Say to Tyre, dwelling at the entrance of the sea, the merchant to the people of many coastlands, thus says Adonai Elohim: ‘Tyre, you said: “I am perfect in beauty!’
When I tell the righteous that he will surely live, but he trusts in his own righteousness and commits iniquity, none of his righteous deeds will be remembered. But in his iniquity that he has committed, he will die.
When Adonai first spoke with Hosea, Adonai said to Hosea: “Go, get yourself a prostitute as a wife and children with a prostitute! For the land is an unfaithful prostitute, far from following after Adonai.”
Do not rejoice, O Israel, do not celebrate like the peoples— for so you have gone whoring away from your God. You have loved a prostitute’s pay, on every grain-threshing-floor.
Her leaders give judgment for a bribe. Her priests give direction for a price. Her prophets practice divination for money. Yet they lean on Adonai by saying: “Is not Adonai in our midst? No calamity will come upon us!”
On that day you will not be ashamed because of all your deeds by which you rebelled against Me. For then I will remove from your midst your proud, arrogant ones, and you will never again be haughty on My holy mountain.
and do not think that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father’! For I tell you that from these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.
Then Bnei-Yisrael again did what was evil in Adonai’s eyes. They worshipped the Baalim, the Ashtaroth, gods of Aram, gods of Zidon, gods of Moab, gods of the children of Ammon and gods of the Philistines. They abandoned Adonai and did not worship Him.
They abandoned Adonai, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods from among the gods of the peoples around them, and bowed down to them. So they provoked the anger of Adonai.