²⁴ Mortal, say to it: You are a land that is not cleansed, not rained upon in the day of indignation.

¹⁴ All the leading priests and the people also were exceedingly unfaithful, following all the abominations of the nations, and they polluted the house of the Lord that he had consecrated in Jerusalem.

The Fall of Jerusalem

¹⁵ The Lord, the God of their ancestors, sent persistently to them by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place,^{(A) 16} but they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words, and scoffing at his prophets until the wrath of the Lord against his people became so great that there was no remedy.^(B)

Apostasy and Death of Ahaz

²² In the time of his distress he became yet more faithless to the Lord—this same King Ahaz.

¹⁶ “As for the word that you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we are not going to listen to you.^{(A) 17} Instead, we will do everything that we have vowed, make offerings to the queen of heaven and pour out libations to her, just as we and our ancestors, our kings and our officials, used to do in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. We used to have plenty of food and prospered and saw no misfortune.^{(B) 18} But from the time we stopped making offerings to the queen of heaven and pouring out libations to her, we have lacked everything and have perished by the sword and by famine.”^{(C) 19} And the women said,^[a] “Indeed we will go on making offerings to the queen of heaven and pouring out libations to her; do you think that we made cakes for her, marked with her image, and poured out libations to her without our husbands’ being involved?”^(D)