2 Kings 17:7-12

Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition

⁷ And this was so, 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, and had feared other gods ⁸ and walked in the customs of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel, and in the customs which the kings of Israel had introduced.^{[a] 9} And the people of Israel did secretly against the Lord their God things that were not right. They built for themselves high places at all their towns, from watchtower to fortified city; ¹⁰ they set up for themselves pillars and Ashe′rim on every high hill and under every green tree; ¹¹ and there they burned incense on all the high places, as the nations did whom the Lord carried away before them. And they did wicked things, provoking the Lord to anger, ¹² and they served idols, of which the Lord had said to them, “You shall not do this.”