³¹ When you present your gifts and ^(A)offer up your children in fire,^[a] you defile yourselves with all your idols to this day. And ^(B)shall I be inquired of by you, O house of Israel? ^(C)As I live, declares the Lord God, I will not be inquired of by you.

²⁶ and I defiled them through ^(A)their very gifts ^(B)in their offering up all their firstborn, that I might devastate them. I did it ^(C)that they might know that I am the Lord.

³¹ And they have built the high places of ^(A)Topheth, which is in ^(B)the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, ^(C)to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, ^(D)which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind.

Warning Against Worldliness

4 What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions^[a] are ^(A)at war within you?^{[b] 2} You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. ³ You ask and do not receive, because you ask ^(B)wrongly, to spend it on your passions.

¹¹ Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, ^(A)‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ ^12 (B)But he answered, ‘Truly, I say to you, ^(C)I do not know you.’

^13 (A)“As I^[a] called, and they would not hear, ^(B)so they called, and I would not hear,” says the Lord of hosts,

^3 (A)“Son of man, speak to the elders of Israel, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God, Is it to inquire of me that you come? ^(B)As I live, declares the Lord God, ^(C)I will not be inquired of by you.

^20 (A)And you took your sons and your daughters, whom you had borne to me, and ^(B)these you sacrificed to them to be devoured. Were your whorings so small a matter