¹⁸ Even with these words, they had difficulty keeping the crowd from sacrificing to them.

¹⁶ “We will not listen^(A) to the message you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord!^{(B) 17} We will certainly do everything we said we would:^(C) We will burn incense^(D) to the Queen of Heaven^(E) and will pour out drink offerings to her just as we and our ancestors, our kings and our officials^(F) did in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem.^(G) At that time we had plenty of food^(H) and were well off and suffered no harm.^(I)

¹⁵ Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king^(A) by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.^(B)

²¹ He said to Aaron, “What did these people do to you, that you led them into such great sin?”

²² “Do not be angry,^(A) my lord,” Aaron answered. “You know how prone these people are to evil.^{(B) 23} They said to me, ‘Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.’^(C)

⁹ “Get out of our way,” they replied. “This fellow came here as a foreigner,^(A) and now he wants to play the judge!^(B) We’ll treat you worse than them.” They kept bringing pressure on Lot and moved forward to break down the door.

⁶ The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language^(A) they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.