All your altars will be demolished, and your places of worship will be destroyed. I will kill your people in front of your idols.

Wherever you live there will be desolation, and I will destroy your pagan shrines. Your altars will be demolished, your idols will be smashed, your places of worship will be torn down, and all the religious objects you have made will be destroyed.

So I went in and saw the walls covered with engravings of all kinds of crawling animals and detestable creatures. I also saw the various idols worshiped by the people of Israel.

Then he brought me into the inner courtyard of the Lord’s Temple. At the entrance to the sanctuary, between the entry room and the bronze altar, there were about twenty-five men with their backs to the sanctuary of the Lord. They were facing east, bowing low to the ground, worshiping the sun!

I will do this to capture the minds and hearts of all my people who have turned from me to worship their detestable idols.’

You took the very jewels and gold and silver ornaments I had given you and made statues of men and worshiped them. This is adultery against me!

You used the beautifully embroidered clothes I gave you to dress your idols. Then you used my special oil and my incense to worship them.

This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Because you have poured out your lust and exposed yourself in prostitution to all your lovers, and because you have worshiped detestable idols, and because you have slaughtered your children as sacrifices to your gods,

He does not feast in the mountains before Israel’s idols or worship them. He does not commit adultery or have intercourse with a woman during her menstrual period.

And that son does all the evil things his father would never do—he worships idols on the mountains, commits adultery,

oppresses the poor and helpless, steals from debtors by refusing to let them redeem their security, worships idols, commits detestable sins,

This son refuses to worship idols on the mountains and does not commit adultery.

“Therefore, give the people of Israel this message from the Sovereign Lord: Do you plan to pollute yourselves just as your ancestors did? Do you intend to keep prostituting yourselves by worshiping vile images?

“As for you, O people of Israel, this is what the Sovereign Lord says: Go right ahead and worship your idols, but sooner or later you will obey me and will stop bringing shame on my holy name by worshiping idols.

For on my holy mountain, the great mountain of Israel, says the Sovereign Lord, the people of Israel will someday worship me, and I will accept them. There I will require that you bring me all your offerings and choice gifts and sacrifices.

People accuse others falsely and send them to their death. You are filled with idol worshipers and people who do obscene things.

And so she prostituted herself with the most desirable men of Assyria, worshiping their idols and defiling herself.

They have committed both adultery and murder—adultery by worshiping idols and murder by burning as sacrifices the children they bore to me.

On the very day that they sacrificed their children to their idols, they boldly came into my Temple to worship! They came in and defiled my house.

You will be fully repaid for all your prostitution—your worship of idols. Yes, you will suffer the full penalty. Then you will know that I am the Sovereign Lord.”

So tell these people, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: You eat meat with blood in it, you worship idols, and you murder the innocent. Do you really think the land should be yours?

They polluted the land with murder and the worship of idols, so I poured out my fury on them.

“Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. Your filth will be washed away, and you will no longer worship idols.

The Lord said to me, “Son of man, this is the place of my throne and the place where I will rest my feet. I will live here forever among the people of Israel. They and their kings will not defile my holy name any longer by their adulterous worship of other gods or by honoring the relics of their kings who have died.

Now let them stop worshiping other gods and honoring the relics of their kings, and I will live among them forever.