and not intermingle with these nations who are still remaining among you. Do not mention the names of their gods or swear by them or worship them or bow down to them.
In this matter, may Adonai pardon your servant: when my master goes into the house of Rimmon to worship there, leaning on my hand, and I prostrate myself in the house of Rimmon—when I prostrate myself in the house of Rimmon, may Adonai pardon your servant in this matter.”
As for those who run after another god, may their sorrows multiply. I will not pour out their drink offerings of blood, nor lift up their names with my lips.
Do not bow down to them, do not let anyone make you serve them. For I, Adonai your God, am a jealous God, bringing the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,
“So it will come to pass, if they will diligently learn the ways of My people—to swear by My Name, ‘As Adonai lives,’ just as they taught My people to swear by Baal—then they will be built up in the midst of My people.
“Why therefore should I forgive you? Your children have forsaken Me and sworn by those who are not gods. Even though I fed them well, they committed adultery and thronged to the prostitute houses.
I will give her back her vineyards from there and make the valley of Achor a door of hope. She will respond there— as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of the land of Egypt.
“But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, whoever you allow to remain will become to you barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides. They will give you trouble in the land in which you will be living.
For if you ever go back and cling to the remnant of these nations that are still remaining among you, and intermarry with them, and you associate with them and they with you,