Ezekiel 23:8

“Don’t make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, lest they play the prostitute after their gods, and sacrifice to their gods, and one call you and you eat of his sacrifice;

Yes, when they had made themselves a molded calf, and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ and had committed awful blasphemies;

They have turned away quickly out of the way which I commanded them. They have made themselves a molded calf, and have worshiped it, and have sacrificed to it, and said, ‘These are your gods, Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt.’ ”

I said to them, ‘Whoever has any gold, let them take it off.’ So they gave it to me; and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.”

I looked, and behold, you had sinned against Yahweh your God. You had made yourselves a molded calf. You had quickly turned away from the way which Yahweh had commanded you.

You shall not plant for yourselves an Asherah of any kind of tree beside Yahweh your God’s altar, which you shall make for yourselves.

They sacrificed to demons, not God, to gods that they didn’t know, to new gods that came up recently, which your fathers didn’t dread.

but have done evil above all who were before you, and have gone and made for yourself other gods, molten images, to provoke me to anger, and have cast me behind your back;

For Yahweh will strike Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water; and he will root up Israel out of this good land which he gave to their fathers, and will scatter them beyond the River, because they have made their Asherah poles, provoking Yahweh to anger.

For they also built for themselves high places, sacred pillars, and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree.

As if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, he took as wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshiped him.

and walked in the statutes of the nations whom Yahweh cast out from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they made.

He himself appointed priests for the high places, for the male goats, and for the calves which he had made.

“Now you intend to withstand the kingdom of Yahweh in the hand of the sons of David. You are a great multitude, and the golden calves which Jeroboam made you for gods are with you.

but sought to the God of his father, and walked in his commandments, and not in the ways of Israel.

For in Yahweh’s hand there is a cup, full of foaming wine mixed with spices. He pours it out. Indeed the wicked of the earth drink and drink it to its very dregs.

Hear Yahweh’s word, you rulers of Sodom! Listen to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah!

You have set up your memorial behind the doors and the posts, for you have exposed yourself to someone besides me, and have gone up. You have enlarged your bed and made you a covenant with them. You loved what you saw on their bed.

“For long ago I broke off your yoke, and burst your bonds. You said, ‘I will not serve;’ for on every high hill and under every green tree you bowed yourself, playing the prostitute.

“ ‘ “Now when I passed by you, and looked at you, behold, your time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over you, and covered your nakedness. Yes, I swore to you, and entered into a covenant with you,” says the Lord Yahweh, “and you became mine.

You have built your lofty place at the head of every way, and have made your beauty an abomination, and have opened your feet to everyone who passed by, and multiplied your prostitution.

For they have committed adultery, and blood is in their hands. They have committed adultery with their idols. They have also caused their sons, whom they bore to me, to pass through the fire to them to be devoured.

Yahweh says: “For three transgressions of Judah, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because they have rejected Yahweh’s law, and have not kept his statutes, and their lies have led them astray, after which their fathers walked;

They made a calf in those days, and brought a sacrifice to the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their hands.

But I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and not to God, and I don’t desire that you would have fellowship with demons.

standing far away for the fear of her torment, saying, ‘Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the strong city! For your judgment has come in one hour.’

You shall not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor follow their practices, but you shall utterly overthrow them and demolish their pillars.

He received what they handed him, fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made it a molded calf. Then they said, “These are your gods, Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt.”

“ ‘It shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations in all your dwellings, that you shall eat neither fat nor blood.’ ”

You shall not walk in the customs of the nation which I am casting out before you; for they did all these things, and therefore I abhorred them.

It shall be to you for a fringe, that you may see it, and remember all Yahweh’s commandments, and do them; and that you don’t follow your own heart and your own eyes, after which you used to play the prostitute;

For Yahweh your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He has known your walking through this great wilderness. These forty years, Yahweh your God has been with you. You have lacked nothing.

and lest you lift up your eyes to the sky, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, even all the army of the sky, you are drawn away and worship them, and serve them, which Yahweh your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole sky.

So the king returned, and came to the Jordan. Judah came to Gilgal, to go to meet the king, to bring the king over the Jordan.

But Jehu took no heed to walk in the law of Yahweh, the God of Israel, with all his heart. He didn’t depart from the sins of Jeroboam, with which he made Israel to sin.

Yes, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons.

Thus they were defiled with their works, and prostituted themselves in their deeds.

Many times they have afflicted me from my youth up. Let Israel now say,

Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain; but a woman who fears Yahweh, she shall be praised.

Awake, awake! Stand up, Jerusalem, you who have drunk from Yahweh’s hand the cup of his wrath. You have drunken the bowl of the cup of staggering, and drained it.

Will you not from this time cry to me, ‘My Father, you are the guide of my youth?’

Don’t trust in lying words, saying, ‘Yahweh’s temple, Yahweh’s temple, Yahweh’s temple, are these.’

In all your abominations and your prostitution you have not remembered the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, and were wallowing in your blood.

Nevertheless I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish to you an everlasting covenant.

because they had not executed my ordinances, but had rejected my statutes, and had profaned my Sabbaths, and their eyes were after their fathers’ idols.

They played the prostitute in Egypt. They played the prostitute in their youth. Their breasts were fondled there, and their youthful nipples were caressed there.

Yet she multiplied her prostitution, remembering the days of her youth, in which she had played the prostitute in the land of Egypt.

Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold, whose height was sixty cubits, and its width six cubits. He set it up in the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon.

She will follow after her lovers, but she won’t overtake them; and she will seek them, but won’t find them. Then she will say, ‘I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now.’

But God turned, and gave them up to serve the army of the sky, as it is written in the book of the prophets, ‘Did you offer to me slain animals and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?

The wine press was trodden outside of the city, and blood came out of the wine press, even to the bridles of the horses, as far as one thousand six hundred stadia.

and cried out as they looked at the smoke of her burning, saying, ‘What is like the great city?’

A mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and cast it into the sea, saying, “Thus with violence will Babylon, the great city, be thrown down, and will be found no more at all.

and said to them, “We can’t do this thing, to give our sister to one who is uncircumcised; for that is a reproach to us.

“He who sacrifices to any god, except to Yahweh only, shall be utterly destroyed.

You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived. You shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you. You shall not follow their statutes.

“ ‘Don’t turn to idols, nor make molten gods for yourselves. I am Yahweh your God.

Yahweh said to Moses, “Behold, you shall sleep with your fathers. This people will rise up and play the prostitute after the strange gods of the land where they go to be among them, and will forsake me and break my covenant which I have made with them.

The people came up out of the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and encamped in Gilgal, on the east border of Jericho.

So the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold; and he said to them, “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Look and behold your gods, Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”

When Yahweh was about to take Elijah up by a whirlwind into heaven, Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal.

However, Jehu didn’t depart from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, with which he made Israel to sin, the golden calves that were in Bethel and that were in Dan.

All the people of the land went to the house of Baal, and broke it down. They broke his altars and his images in pieces thoroughly, and killed Mattan the priest of Baal before the altars. The priest appointed officers over Yahweh’s house.

They abandoned all the commandments of Yahweh their God, and made molten images for themselves, even two calves, and made an Asherah, and worshiped all the army of the sky, and served Baal.

For he built again the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; and he raised up altars for Baal, and made an Asherah, as Ahab king of Israel did, and worshiped all the army of the sky, and served them.

Moreover he made high places in the mountains of Judah, and made the inhabitants of Jerusalem play the prostitute, and led Judah astray.

Go out, you daughters of Zion, and see king Solomon, with the crown with which his mother has crowned him, in the day of his weddings, in the day of the gladness of his heart.

How the faithful city has become a prostitute! She was full of justice. Righteousness lodged in her, but now there are murderers.

“Return, backsliding children,” says Yahweh; “for I am a husband to you. I will take one of you from a city, and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion.

“Stand in the gate of Yahweh’s house, and proclaim this word there, and say, ‘Hear Yahweh’s word, all you of Judah, who enter in at these gates to worship Yahweh.’ ”

Yahweh said to me, “Proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying, ‘Hear the words of this covenant, and do them.

But we will certainly perform every word that has gone out of our mouth, to burn incense to the queen of the sky, and to pour out drink offerings to her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem; for then had we plenty of food, and were well, and saw no evil.

Because you have burned incense, and because you have sinned against Yahweh, and have not obeyed Yahweh’s voice, nor walked in his law, nor in his statutes, nor in his testimonies; therefore this evil has happened to you, as it is today.”

“ ‘ “But you trusted in your beauty, and played the prostitute because of your renown, and poured out your prostitution on everyone who passed by. It was his.

When Yahweh spoke at first by Hosea, Yahweh said to Hosea, “Go, take for yourself a wife of prostitution and children of unfaithfulness; for the land commits great adultery, forsaking Yahweh.”

I will give her vineyards from there, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope; and she will respond there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.

The rest of mankind, who were not killed with these plagues, didn’t repent of the works of their hands, that they wouldn’t worship demons, and the idols of gold, and of silver, and of brass, and of stone, and of wood; which can’t see, hear, or walk.

They shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices to the goat idols, after which they play the prostitute. This shall be a statute forever to them throughout their generations.’

Yahweh said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.” Therefore the name of that place was called Gilgal to this day.

Didn’t your fathers do this, and didn’t our God bring all this evil on us, and on this city? Yet you bring more wrath on Israel by profaning the Sabbath.”

You have also committed sexual immorality with the Egyptians, your neighbors, great of flesh; and have multiplied your prostitution, to provoke me to anger.

‘The Lord Yahweh says, “Because your filthiness was poured out, and your nakedness uncovered through your prostitution with your lovers; and because of all the idols of your abominations, and for the blood of your children, that you gave to them;

I said to them, ‘Each of you throw away the abominations of his eyes. Don’t defile yourselves with the idols of Egypt. I am Yahweh your God.’

because they rejected my ordinances, and didn’t walk in my statutes, and profaned my Sabbaths; for their heart went after their idols.

Thus you called to memory the lewdness of your youth, in the caressing of your nipples by the Egyptians because of your youthful breasts.

You will even drink it and drain it out. You will gnaw the broken pieces of it, and will tear your breasts; for I have spoken it,’ says the Lord Yahweh.

Their dead bodies will be in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.

“Go and proclaim in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, ‘Yahweh says, “I remember for you the kindness of your youth, the love of your weddings; how you went after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown.