Jeremiah 2:20

Joseph said to his brothers, “I am dying, but God will surely visit you, and bring you up out of this land to the land which he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.”

I have said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, to a land flowing with milk and honey.” ’

“I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

“I removed his shoulder from the burden. His hands were freed from the basket.

I will take you to myself for a people. I will be your God; and you shall know that I am Yahweh your God, who brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.

They took some of the fruit of the land in their hands and brought it down to us, and brought us word again, and said, “It is a good land which Yahweh our God gives to us.”

You shall surely destroy all the places in which the nations that you shall dispossess served their gods: on the high mountains, and on the hills, and under every green tree.

(for they are your people, and your inheritance, which you brought out of Egypt, from the middle of the iron furnace);

Yahweh of Armies will stir up a scourge against him, as in the slaughter of Midian at the rock of Oreb. His rod will be over the sea, and he will lift it up like he did against Egypt.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that you may proclaim the excellence of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

It shall be, when Yahweh brings you into the land of the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Amorite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite, which he swore to your fathers to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey, that you shall keep this service in this month.

Go to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you, for you are a stiff-necked people, lest I consume you on the way.”

I will destroy your high places, and cut down your incense altars, and cast your dead bodies upon the bodies of your idols; and my soul will abhor you.

and that you may prolong your days in the land which Yahweh swore to your fathers to give to them and to their offspring, a land flowing with milk and honey.

They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God. They have provoked me to anger with their vanities. I will move them to jealousy with those who are not a people. I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.

They abandoned Yahweh, and served Baal and the Ashtaroth.

The children of Israel cried to Yahweh, saying, “We have sinned against you, even because we have forsaken our God, and have served the Baals.”

He sacrificed and burned incense in the high places, on the hills, and under every green tree.

So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath Pileser king of Assyria, saying, “I am your servant and your son. Come up and save me out of the hand of the king of Syria, and out of the hand of the king of Israel, who rise up against me.”

They abandoned the house of Yahweh, the God of their fathers, and served the Asherah poles and the idols, so wrath came on Judah and Jerusalem for this their guiltiness.

which I commanded your fathers in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the iron furnace,’ saying, ‘Obey my voice, and do them, according to all which I command you; so you shall be my people, and I will be your God;

that I may establish the oath which I swore to your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey,’ as it is today.” Then I answered, and said, “Amen, Yahweh.”

“ ‘ “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.

in that day I swore to them, to bring them out of the land of Egypt into a land that I had searched out for them, flowing with milk and honey, which is the glory of all lands.

“ ‘Thus I will cause lewdness to cease out of the land, that all women may be taught not to be lewd like you.

but don’t prophesy again any more at Bethel; for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a royal house!”

That same day, Yahweh brought the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt by their armies.

I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves. I have broken the bars of your yoke, and made you walk upright.

They told him, and said, “We came to the land where you sent us. Surely it flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit.

Yet they are your people and your inheritance, which you brought out by your great power and by your outstretched arm.”

She shall take off the clothing of her captivity, and shall remain in your house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month. After that you shall go in to her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife.

Pul the king of Assyria came against the land, and Menahem gave Pul one thousand talents of silver, that his hand might be with him to confirm the kingdom in his hand.

Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against him, and Hoshea became his servant, and brought him tribute.

He burned Yahweh’s house, the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem, even every great house, he burned with fire.

Now what do you gain by going to Egypt, to drink the waters of the Shihor? Or why do you to go on the way to Assyria, to drink the waters of the River?

Why do you go about so much to change your ways? You will be ashamed of Egypt also, as you were ashamed of Assyria.

“They say, ‘If a man puts away his wife, and she goes from him, and becomes another man’s, should he return to her again?’ Wouldn’t that land be greatly polluted? But you have played the prostitute with many lovers; yet return again to me,” says Yahweh.

Yahweh says to me: “Make bonds and bars, and put them on your neck.

The Chaldeans burned the king’s house, and the houses of the people, with fire, and broke down the walls of Jerusalem.

He burned Yahweh’s house, and the king’s house; and all the houses of Jerusalem, even every great house, he burned with fire.

You will know that I am Yahweh, when their slain men are among their idols around their altars, on every high hill, on all the tops of the mountains, under every green tree, and under every thick oak, the places where they offered pleasant aroma to all their idols.

Thus I will make your lewdness to cease from you, and remove your prostitution from the land of Egypt; so that you will not lift up your eyes to them, nor remember Egypt any more.’

For she didn’t know that I gave her the grain, the new wine, and the oil, and multiplied to her silver and gold, which they used for Baal.

Yahweh said to me, “Go again, love a woman loved by another, and an adulteress, even as Yahweh loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods, and love cakes of raisins.”

“When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his wound, Then Ephraim went to Assyria, and sent to king Jareb: but he is not able to heal you, neither will he cure you of your wound.

It also will be carried to Assyria for a present to a great king. Ephraim will receive shame, and Israel will be ashamed of his own counsel.

He took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people, and they said, “We will do all that Yahweh has said, and be obedient.”

The children of Israel did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, and forgot Yahweh their God, and served the Baals and the Asheroth.

For he built again the high places which Hezekiah his father had broken down; and he raised up altars for the Baals, made Asheroth, and worshiped all the army of the sky, and served them.

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

They will not look to the altars, the work of their hands; neither shall they respect that which their fingers have made, either the Asherah poles, or the incense altars.

you who inflame yourselves among the oaks, under every green tree; who kill the children in the valleys, under the clefts of the rocks?

“Lift up your eyes to the bare heights, and see! Where have you not been lain with? You have sat waiting for them by the road, as an Arabian in the wilderness. You have polluted the land with your prostitution and with your wickedness.

Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have transgressed against Yahweh your God, and have scattered your ways to the strangers under every green tree, and you have not obeyed my voice,’ says Yahweh.”

I will go to the great men and will speak to them, for they know the way of Yahweh, and the law of their God.” But these with one accord have broken the yoke, and burst the bonds.

The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead the dough, to make cakes to the queen of the sky, and to pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.

Even their children remember their altars and their Asherah poles by the green trees on the high hills.

It will come to pass in that day, says Yahweh of Armies, that I will break his yoke from off your neck, and will burst your bonds. Strangers will no more make them their bondservants;

“that you have built for yourselves a vaulted place, and have made yourselves a lofty place in every street.

I said to her, “You shall stay with me many days. You shall not play the prostitute, and you shall not be with any other man. I will also be so toward you.”

One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke with me, saying, “Come here. I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who sits on many waters,

About three months later, Judah was told, “Tamar, your daughter-in-law, has played the prostitute. Moreover, behold, she is with child by prostitution.” Judah said, “Bring her out, and let her be burned.”

I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey; to the place of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite.

All the people answered together, and said, “All that Yahweh has spoken we will do.” Moses reported the words of the people to Yahweh.

Moses came and told the people all Yahweh’s words, and all the ordinances; and all the people answered with one voice, and said, “All the words which Yahweh has spoken will we do.”

But Yahweh has taken you, and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be to him a people of inheritance, as it is today.

Or has God tried to go and take a nation for himself from among another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, by war, by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that Yahweh your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?

Go near, and hear all that Yahweh our God shall say, and tell us all that Yahweh our God tells you; and we will hear it, and do it.”

You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and Yahweh your God redeemed you. Therefore I command you this thing today.

You have declared today that Yahweh is your God, and that you would walk in his ways, keep his statutes, his commandments, and his ordinances, and listen to his voice.

They answered Joshua, saying, “All that you have commanded us we will do, and wherever you send us we will go.

The people said to Joshua, “We will serve Yahweh our God, and we will listen to his voice.”

Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God; and he took a great stone, and set it up there under the oak that was by the sanctuary of Yahweh.

They cried to Yahweh, and said, ‘We have sinned, because we have forsaken Yahweh, and have served the Baals and the Ashtaroth: but now deliver us out of the hand of our enemies, and we will serve you.’

Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like the feast that is in Judah, and he went up to the altar. He did so in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves that he had made, and he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places that he had made.

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

However the high places were not taken away. The people still sacrificed and burned incense in the high places.

For they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their engraved images.

Now she is in the streets, now in the squares, and lurking at every corner.

Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the desire. This also is vanity and a chasing after wind.

For they shall be ashamed of the oaks which you have desired, and you shall be confounded for the gardens that you have chosen.

For the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, you have broken as in the day of Midian.

It will happen in that day that his burden will depart from off your shoulder, and his yoke from off your neck, and the yoke shall be destroyed because of the anointing oil.

that I will break the Assyrian in my land, and tread him under foot on my mountains. Then his yoke will leave them, and his burden leave their shoulders.

On a high and lofty mountain you have set your bed. You also went up there to offer sacrifice.

I will bring again to this place Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, with all the captives of Judah, who went to Babylon,’ says Yahweh; ‘for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon.’ ”

My people have been lost sheep. Their shepherds have caused them to go astray. They have turned them away on the mountains. They have gone from mountain to hill. They have forgotten their resting place.

It is because of the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests, That have shed the blood of the just in the middle of her.

and say, ‘You mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord Yahweh! The Lord Yahweh says to the mountains and to the hills, to the watercourses and to the valleys: “Behold, I, even I, will bring a sword on you, and I will destroy your high places.

But as for them whose heart walks after the heart of their detestable things and their abominations, I will bring their way on their own heads,’ says the Lord Yahweh.”

You have played the prostitute also with the Assyrians, because you were insatiable; yes, you have played the prostitute with them, and yet you weren’t satisfied.

in that you build your vaulted place at the head of every way, and make your lofty place in every street, and have not been as a prostitute, in that you scorn pay.

They will burn your houses with fire, and execute judgments on you in the sight of many women. I will cause you to cease from playing the prostitute, and you will also give no hire any more.

For when I had brought them into the land which I swore to give to them, then they saw every high hill, and every thick tree, and they offered there their sacrifices, and there they presented the provocation of their offering. There they also made their pleasant aroma, and there they poured out their drink offerings.

“Oholah played the prostitute when she was mine. She doted on her lovers, on the Assyrians her neighbors,

The tree of the field will yield its fruit, and the earth will yield its increase, and they will be secure in their land. Then they will know that I am Yahweh, when I have broken the bars of their yoke, and have delivered them out of the hand of those who made slaves of them.

For their mother has played the prostitute. She who conceived them has done shamefully; for she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’

They sacrifice on the tops of the mountains, and burn incense on the hills, under oaks and poplars and terebinths, because its shade is good. Therefore your daughters play the prostitute, and your brides commit adultery.

If Gilead is wicked, surely they are worthless. In Gilgal they sacrifice bulls. Indeed, their altars are like heaps in the furrows of the field.

Now I will break his yoke from off you, and will burst your bonds apart.”