Israel's Unfaithfulness

^11 (A)And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals. ^12 (B)And they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. ^(C)They went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and ^(D)bowed down to them. ^(E)And they provoked the Lord to anger.

^15 (A)“But you trusted in your beauty ^(B)and played the whore^[a] because of your renown ^(C)and lavished your whorings^[b] on any passerby; your beauty^[c] became his. ¹⁶ You took some of your garments and made for yourself colorful shrines, and on them played the whore. The like has never been, nor ever shall be.^{[d] 17} You also took ^(D)your beautiful jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given you, and ^(E)made for yourself images of men, and with them played the whore. ¹⁸ And you took your embroidered garments to cover them, ^(F)and set my oil and my incense before them. ^19 (G)Also my bread that I gave you—^(H)I fed you with fine flour and oil and honey—you set before them for ^(I)a pleasing aroma; and so it was, declares the Lord God. ^20 (J)And you took your sons and your daughters, whom you had borne to me, and ^(K)these you sacrificed to them to be devoured. Were your whorings so small a matter ²¹ that you slaughtered my children and delivered them up as an offering by fire to them? ²² And in all your abominations and your whorings you did not remember ^(L)the days of your youth, ^(M)when you were naked and bare, wallowing in your blood.

²³ “And after all your wickedness (woe, woe to you! declares the Lord God), ²⁴ you built yourself ^(N)a vaulted chamber and made yourself a lofty place in every square. ²⁵ At the head of every street ^(O)you built your lofty place and made ^(P)your beauty an abomination, ^(Q)offering yourself^[e] to any passerby and multiplying your whoring. ^26 (R)You also played the whore ^(S)with the Egyptians, your lustful neighbors, ^(T)multiplying your whoring, ^(U)to provoke me to anger.

²⁵ And they captured ^(A)fortified cities and ^(B)a rich land, and took possession of ^(C)houses full of all good things, cisterns already hewn, vineyards, olive orchards and fruit trees in abundance. So they ate and were filled ^(D)and became fat and delighted themselves in ^(E)your great goodness.

^26 (F)“Nevertheless, they were disobedient and rebelled against you ^(G)and cast your law behind their back ^(H)and killed your prophets, who ^(I)had warned them in order to turn them back to you, ^(J)and they committed great blasphemies.

Exile Because of Idolatry

⁷ And this occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, ^(A)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 (B)and walked in the customs of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel, ^(C)and in the customs that the kings of Israel had practiced. ⁹ And the people of Israel did secretly against the Lord their God things that were not right. They built for themselves high places in all their towns, ^(D)from watchtower to fortified city. ¹⁰ They set up for themselves ^(E)pillars and Asherim on every high hill and under every green tree, ¹¹ and there they made offerings 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, ^(F)of which the Lord had said to them, “You shall not do this.” ¹³ Yet the Lord ^(G)warned Israel and Judah ^(H)by every prophet ^(I)and every seer, saying, ^(J)“Turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes, in accordance with all the Law that I commanded your fathers, and that I sent to you by my servants the prophets.”

¹⁴ But they would not listen, ^(K)but were stubborn, as their fathers had been, who did not believe in the Lord their God. ¹⁵ They despised his statutes ^(L)and his covenant that he made with their fathers and the warnings that he gave them. They went after ^(M)false idols ^(N)and became false, and they followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the ^(O)Lord had commanded them that they should not do like them. ¹⁶ And they abandoned all the commandments of the Lord their God, and made for themselves metal images of ^(P)two calves; and they ^(Q)made an Asherah and ^(R)worshiped all the host of heaven and served ^(S)Baal. ^17 (T)And they burned their sons and their daughters as offerings^[a] and used ^(U)divination and ^(V)omens and ^(W)sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger. ¹⁸ Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them out of his sight. None was left but ^(X)the tribe of Judah only.

^19 (Y)Judah also did not keep the commandments of the Lord their God, but walked in the customs that Israel had introduced. ²⁰ And the Lord rejected all the descendants of Israel and afflicted them ^(Z)and gave them into the hand of plunderers, until he had cast them out of his sight.

^21 (AA)When he had torn Israel from the house of David, ^(AB)they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king. And Jeroboam drove Israel from following the Lord ^(AC)and made them commit great sin. ²² The people of Israel walked in all the sins that Jeroboam did. They did not depart from them, ²³ until the Lord removed Israel out of his sight, ^(AD)as he had spoken by all his servants the prophets. ^(AE)So Israel was exiled from their own land to Assyria until this day.

¹⁶ And the Lord said to Moses, ^(A)“Behold, you are about to lie down with your fathers. Then this people will rise and ^(B)whore after the foreign gods among them in the land that they are entering, and they will ^(C)forsake me and ^(D)break my covenant that I have made with them. ¹⁷ Then my anger will be kindled against them in that day, and ^(E)I will forsake them and ^(F)hide my face from them, and they will be devoured. And many evils and troubles will come upon them, so that they will say in that day, ^(G)‘Have not these evils come upon us because ^(H)our God is not among us?’ ¹⁸ And I will surely hide my face in that day because of all the evil that they have done, because ^(I)they have turned to other gods.

¹⁹ “Now therefore write ^(J)this song and ^(K)teach it to the people of Israel. Put it in their mouths, that this song may be ^(L)a witness for me against the people of Israel. ²⁰ For when I have brought them into the land ^(M)flowing with milk and honey, which I swore to give to their fathers, and they have eaten and are full and ^(N)grown fat, ^(O)they will turn to other gods and serve them, and ^(P)despise me and ^(Q)break my covenant.