Then Adonai said to me in the days of King Josiah: “Have you seen what backsliding Israel did? She went up on every high mountain and under every green tree, and there she committed adultery.
They have turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers who refused to hear My words. They have gone after other gods to serve them. “The house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken My covenant which I made with their fathers.”
I noted that when backsliding Israel committed adultery I sent her away and gave her a certificate of divorce. Yet, unfaithful Judah, her sister, did not fear. Instead she also went and committed adultery.
Thus says Adonai-Tzva’ot, the God of Israel: “Yet again will they use this expression in the land of Judah and in its cities, when I will return them from exile: ‘Adonai bless you, O dwelling of righteousness, O mountain of holiness.’
But they did not listen or pay attention. Instead they followed their own counsel, in the stubbornness of their evil heart. They have gone backward and not forward,
when you build your mound at the head of every road and make your high place in every street. Yet you were not like a harlot, since you scoffed at receiving payment.
When I brought them into the land, which I lifted up My hand to give to them, they saw every high hill and every leafy tree. There they slaughtered their sacrifices and presented their offensive offering. There they made their soothing aroma and poured out their drink offerings.
Their names were Oholah, the older one, and Oholibah, her sister. They became Mine, and they gave birth to sons and daughters. As for their names, Oholah is Samaria, and Oholibah is Jerusalem.
They sacrifice on the mountaintops and on the high places they burn incense under oak poplar, and terebinth— for its shade is good. Therefore your daughters are prostitutes and your daughters-in-law commit adultery.
Yet they listened not to their judges, for they prostituted themselves after other gods and bowed down to them. They quickly turned aside from the way in which their fathers walked in obeying the commandments of Adonai; they did not do so.