³⁸ Moreover, this they have done to me: they have defiled my sanctuary on the same day and profaned my Sabbaths.

¹³ But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness; they did not observe my statutes but rejected my ordinances, by whose observance everyone shall live, and my Sabbaths they greatly profaned.

Then I thought I would pour out my wrath upon them in the wilderness, to make an end of them.^(A)

²⁴ because they had not executed my ordinances but had rejected my statutes and profaned my Sabbaths, and their eyes were set on their ancestors’ idols.

²⁰ From their^[a] beautiful ornament, in which they took pride, they made their abominable images, their detestable things; therefore I will make of it an unclean thing to them.^(A)

⁷ The carved image of Asherah that he had made he set in the house of which the Lord said to David and to his son Solomon, “In this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my name forever;^(A)

⁸ You have despised my holy things and profaned my Sabbaths.^(A)

⁵ Then God^[a] said to me, “O mortal, lift up your eyes now in the direction of the north.” So I lifted up my eyes toward the north, and there, north of the altar gate, in the entrance, was this image of jealousy.^{(A) 6} He said to me, “Mortal, do you see what they are doing, the great abominations that the house of Israel are committing here, to drive me far from my sanctuary? Yet you will see still greater abominations.”^(B)

⁷ And he brought me to the entrance of the court; I looked, and there was a hole in the wall. ⁸ Then he said to me, “Mortal, dig through the wall,” and when I dug through the wall, there was an entrance. ⁹ He said to me, “Go in and see the vile abominations that they are committing here.” ¹⁰ So I went in and looked; there, portrayed on the wall all around, were all kinds of creeping things and loathsome animals and all the idols of the house of Israel.^{(C) 11} Before them stood seventy of the elders of the house of Israel, with Jaazaniah son of Shaphan standing among them. Each had his censer in his hand, and the fragrant cloud of incense was ascending.^{(D) 12} Then he said to me, “Mortal, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, each in his room of images? For they say, ‘The Lord does not see us; the Lord has forsaken the land.’ ” ¹³ He said also to me, “You will see still greater abominations that they are committing.”^(E)

¹⁴ Then he brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the house of the Lord; women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz.^{(F) 15} Then he said to me, “Have you seen this, O mortal? You will see still greater abominations than these.”

¹⁶ And he brought me into the inner court of the house of the Lord; there, at the entrance of the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs to the temple of the Lord and their faces toward the east, prostrating themselves to the sun toward the east.^(G)

²⁷ But if you do not listen to me, to keep the Sabbath day holy and to carry in no burden through the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, then I will kindle a fire in its gates; it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem and shall not be quenched.^(A)

¹⁷ Then I contended with the nobles of Judah and said to them, “What is this evil thing that you are doing, profaning the Sabbath day?^{(A) 18} Did not your ancestors act in this way, and did not our God bring all this disaster on us and on this city? Yet you bring more wrath on Israel by profaning the Sabbath.”^(B)

¹¹ He removed the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun at the entrance to the house of the Lord, by the chamber of the eunuch Nathan-melech, which was in the precincts;^[a] then he burned the chariots of the sun with fire. ¹² The altars on the roof of the upper chamber of Ahaz that the kings of Judah had made and the altars that Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the Lord he pulled down from there and broke in pieces and threw the rubble into the Wadi Kidron.^(A)