But may the Lord pardon your servant on one count: when my master goes into the house of Rimmon to worship there, leaning on my arm, and I bow down in the house of Rimmon, when I do bow down in the house of Rimmon, may the Lord pardon your servant on this one count.”

Slaughter of Worshipers of Baal

Then Jehu assembled all the people and said to them, “Ahab offered Baal small service, but Jehu will offer much more.

This occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They had worshiped other gods

They rejected all the commandments of the Lord their God and made for themselves cast images of two calves; they made a sacred pole, worshiped all the host of heaven, and served Baal.

When they first settled there, they did not worship the Lord; therefore the Lord sent lions among them that killed some of them.

So one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and lived in Bethel; he taught them how they should worship the Lord.

They also worshiped the Lord and appointed from among themselves all sorts of people as priests of the high places, who sacrificed for them in the shrines of the high places.

So they worshiped the Lord but also served their own gods, after the manner of the nations from among whom they had been carried away.

To this day they continue to practice their former customs. They do not worship the Lord, and they do not follow the statutes or the ordinances or the law or the commandment that the Lord commanded the children of Jacob, whom he named Israel.

The Lord had made a covenant with them and commanded them, “You shall not worship other gods or bow yourselves to them or serve them or sacrifice to them,

but you shall worship the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt with great power and with an outstretched arm; you shall bow yourselves to him, and to him you shall sacrifice.

The statutes and the ordinances and the law and the commandment that he wrote for you, you shall always be careful to observe. You shall not worship other gods;

you shall not forget the covenant that I have made with you. You shall not worship other gods,

but you shall worship the Lord your God; he will deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies.”

So these nations worshiped the Lord but also served their carved images; to this day their children and their children’s children continue to do as their ancestors did.

But if you say to me, ‘We rely on the Lord our God,’ is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem’?

As he was worshiping in the house of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer killed him with the sword, and they escaped into the land of Ararat. His son Esar-haddon succeeded him.

For he rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had destroyed; he erected altars for Baal, made a sacred pole, as King Ahab of Israel had done, worshiped all the host of heaven and served them.

He walked in all the way in which his father walked, served the idols that his father served, and worshiped them;