⁷ This occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They had worshiped other gods^{(A) 8} and walked in the customs of the nations whom the Lord had driven out before the people of Israel and in the customs that the kings of Israel had introduced.^{[a](B) 9} The people of Israel did^[b] things that were not right against the Lord their God. They built for themselves high places at all their towns, from watchtower to fortified city;^{(C) 10} they set up for themselves pillars and sacred poles^[c] on every high hill and under every green tree;^{(D) 11} there they made offerings on all the high places, as the nations did whom the Lord had carried away before them. They did wicked things, provoking the Lord to anger;

¹⁵ They despised his statutes and his covenant that he had made with their ancestors and the warnings that he had given them. They went after false idols and became false; they followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the Lord had commanded them that they should not do as they did.^(A)