Then he set up the carved image of Asherah that he made in the House about which Adonai had said to David and to his son Solomon, “In this House and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen from all the tribes of Israel, I will put My Name forever.
Now, behold, I will give to your servants, the woodsmen who cut the timber, 20,000 measures of ground wheat, 20,000 measures of barley, 20,000 vats of wine and 20,000 vats of oil.”
Furthermore, all the leading kohanim and the people became very unfaithful, following all the abominations of the nations. They defiled the House of Adonai, which He had consecrated in Jerusalem.
But many of the kohanim, Levites and patriarchal leaders, older men who had seen the former House, wept loudly at the sight of the founding of this House, while many shouted for joy.
You will defile your graven images overlaid with silver, and your metal images covered with gold. You will throw them away like a menstrual cloth. You will say, “Be gone!”
Therefore I will do to the House that bears My Name—the one in which you trust, the one that I gave to you and to your fathers—as I have done to Shiloh.
“The children of Judah have done what is evil in My sight”—it is a declaration of Adonai—“They have set their detestable things in the House that bears My Name to defile it.
The enemy has stretched his hand over all her treasures. She even saw nations enter her sanctuary— those You had commanded not to enter Your congregation.
How my Lord has clouded over the daughter of Zion in His anger! He hurled down the splendor of Israel from heaven to earth. He has not remembered His footstool in the day of His anger.
The Lord rejected His altar, despised His Sanctuary. He has delivered the walls of her citadels into the hand of the enemy. They raised a shout in the house of Adonai as if it were the day of a moed.
My bread that I gave you, fine flour, oil and honey that I fed you with, you set before them as a sweet aroma. That is what happened.” It is a declaration of Adonai.
speak to the house of Israel, thus says Adonai Elohim: ‘Behold, I will profane My Sanctuary, the pride of your might, the desire of your eyes and the longing of your soul. Your sons and your daughters that you have left behind will fall by the sword.
“Therefore, as I live, says Adonai Elohim, surely, because you have defiled My Sanctuary with all your detestable things and with all your abominations, therefore I will shave you off. My eye will not spare, and I will have no pity.
Yet Gideon said to them, “I would make a request of you, that you would give me every man an earring from his spoil.” (For they had golden earrings, because they were Ishmaelites.)
Gideon made it into an ephod, and put it in his town Ophrah. But all Israel prostituted themselves after it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and his household.