Psalms 78:58

But I ask, didn’t Israel know? First Moses says, “I will provoke you to jealousy with that which is no nation. I will make you angry with a nation void of understanding.”

For he walked in all the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and in his sins with which he made Israel to sin, to provoke Yahweh, the God of Israel, to anger with their vanities.

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

for all the sins of Baasha, and the sins of Elah his son, which they sinned, and with which they made Israel to sin, to provoke Yahweh, the God of Israel, to anger with their vanities.

What agreement does a temple of God have with idols? For you are a temple of the living God. Even as God said, “I will dwell in them and walk in them. I will be their God and they will be my people.”

Samuel spoke to all the house of Israel, saying, “If you are returning to Yahweh with all your heart, then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you, and direct your hearts to Yahweh, and serve him only; and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.”

How long, Yahweh? Will you hide yourself forever? Will your wrath burn like fire?

Yet the number of the children of Israel will be as the sand of the sea, which can’t be measured or counted; and it will come to pass that, in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’

Now why do you cry out aloud? Is there no king in you? Has your counselor perished, that pains have taken hold of you as of a woman in travail?

“You shall not make for yourselves an idol, nor any image of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:

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.

“You shall make no cast idols for yourselves.

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.

Woe to you, Moab! You are undone, people of Chemosh! He has given his sons as fugitives, and his daughters into captivity, to Sihon king of the Amorites.

Yahweh said to me, “Arise, get down quickly from here; for your people whom you have brought out of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They have quickly turned away from the way which I commanded them. They have made a molten image for themselves!”

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.

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.

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

They abandoned Yahweh, and served Baal and the Ashtaroth.

Yahweh’s anger burned against Israel, and he delivered them into the hands of raiders who plundered them. He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, so that they could no longer stand before their enemies.

For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.

Yet I reserved seven thousand in Israel, all the knees of which have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth which has not kissed him.”

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

They rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified to them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom Yahweh had commanded them that they should not do like them.

So they feared Yahweh, and also made from among themselves priests of the high places for themselves, who sacrificed for them in the houses of the high places.

The king defiled the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the right hand of the mountain of corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Sidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Milcom the abomination of the children of Ammon.

When the kingdom of Rehoboam was established and he was strong, he abandoned Yahweh’s law, and all Israel with him.

Haven’t you driven out the priests of Yahweh, the sons of Aaron, and the Levites, and made priests for yourselves according to the ways of the peoples of other lands? Whoever comes to consecrate himself with a young bull and seven rams may be a priest of those who are no gods.

I hate those who regard lying vanities, but I trust in Yahweh.

God, why have you rejected us forever? Why does your anger smolder against the sheep of your pasture?

Will you be angry with us forever? Will you draw out your anger to all generations?

No one thinks, neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say, “I have burned part of it in the fire. Yes, I have also baked bread on its coals. I have roasted meat and eaten it. Shall I make the rest of it into an abomination? Shall I bow down to a tree trunk?”

“How can I pardon you? Your children have forsaken me, and sworn by what are no gods. When I had fed them to the full, they committed adultery, and assembled themselves in troops at the prostitutes’ houses.

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.

Those who regard lying vanities forsake their own mercy.

When he again brings in the firstborn into the world he says, “Let all the angels of God worship him.”

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

“ ‘You shall make for yourselves no idols, and you shall not raise up a carved image or a pillar, and you shall not place any figured stone in your land, to bow down to it; for I am Yahweh your God.

“Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned my wrath away from the children of Israel, in that he was jealous with my jealousy among them, so that I didn’t consume the children of Israel in my jealousy.

“You shall not make a carved image for yourself—any likeness of what is in heaven above, or what is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

You shall break down their altars, dash their pillars in pieces, and burn their Asherah poles with fire. You shall cut down the engraved images of their gods. You shall destroy their name out of that place.

when you disobey the covenant of Yahweh your God, which he commanded you, and go and serve other gods, and bow down yourselves to them. Then Yahweh’s anger will be kindled against you, and you will perish quickly from off the good land which he has given to you.”

The people served Yahweh all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work of Yahweh that he had worked for Israel.

As soon as Gideon was dead, the children of Israel turned again and played the prostitute following the Baals, and made Baal Berith their god.

Won’t you possess that which Chemosh your god gives you to possess? So whoever Yahweh our God has dispossessed from before us, them will we possess.

For the saying which he cried by Yahweh’s word against the altar in Bethel, and against all the houses of the high places which are in the cities of Samaria, will surely happen.”

Judah did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, and they provoked him to jealousy with their sins which they committed, above all that their fathers had done.

He killed all the priests of the high places that were there, on the altars, and burned men’s bones on them; and he returned to Jerusalem.

Then Isaiah the prophet came to king Hezekiah, and asked him, “What did these men say? From where did they come to you?” Hezekiah said, “They have come from a country far from me, even from Babylon.”

“I am Yahweh. That is my name. I will not give my glory to another, nor my praise to engraved images.

“Those who trust in engraved images, who tell molten images, ‘You are our gods,’ will be turned back. They will be utterly disappointed.

Some pour out gold from the bag, and weigh silver in the balance. They hire a goldsmith, and he makes it a god. They fall down— yes, they worship.

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

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.”

They deck it with silver and with gold. They fasten it with nails and with hammers, so that it can’t move.

But they are together brutish and foolish, instructed by idols! It is just wood.

Every man has become brutish and without knowledge. Every goldsmith is disappointed by his engraved image; for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them.

They have turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers, who refused to hear my words. They have gone after other gods to serve them. The house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken my covenant which I made with their fathers.

Are there any among the vanities of the nations that can cause rain? Or can the sky give showers? Aren’t you he, Yahweh our God? Therefore we will wait for you; for you have made all these things.

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

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.

I will also give you into their hand, and they will throw down your vaulted place, and break down your lofty places. They will strip you of your clothes, and take your beautiful jewels. They will leave you naked and bare.

He said to me, “Son of man, this is the place of my throne, and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell among the children of Israel forever. The house of Israel will no more defile my holy name, neither they, nor their kings, by their prostitution, and by the dead bodies of their kings in their high places;

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 is a jealous God and avenges. Yahweh avenges and is full of wrath. Yahweh takes vengeance on his adversaries, and he maintains wrath against his enemies.

“Therefore wait for me”, says Yahweh, “until the day that I rise up to the prey, for my determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour on them my indignation, even all my fierce anger, for all the earth will be devoured with the fire of my jealousy.

As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them, even as on us at the beginning.

“Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to the living God, who made the sky, the earth, the sea, and all that is in them;

As he says also in Hosea, “I will call them ‘my people,’ which were not my people; and her ‘beloved,’ who was not beloved.”

Otherwise if you bless with the spirit, how will he who fills the place of the unlearned say the “Amen” at your giving of thanks, seeing he doesn’t know what you say?

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.

They moved him to jealousy with strange gods. They provoked him to anger with abominations.

Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, on the mountain that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech the abomination of the children of Ammon.

He made houses of high places, and made priests from among all the people, who were not of the sons of Levi.

you shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them, for I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and on the fourth generation of those who hate me,

for you shall worship no other god; for Yahweh, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.

then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, destroy all their stone idols, destroy all their molten images, and demolish all their high places.

For Yahweh your God is a devouring fire, a jealous God.

You shall not do so to Yahweh your God.

‘Cursed is the man who makes an engraved or molten image, an abomination to Yahweh, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and sets it up in secret.’ All the people shall answer and say, ‘Amen.’

Yahweh will not pardon him, but then Yahweh’s anger and his jealousy will smoke against that man, and all the curse that is written in this book will fall on him, and Yahweh will blot out his name from under the sky.

Yet they didn’t listen to their judges; for they prostituted themselves to other gods, and bowed themselves down to them. They quickly turned away from the way in which their fathers walked, obeying Yahweh’s commandments. They didn’t do so.

Yahweh’s anger burned against Israel; and he said, “Because this nation transgressed my covenant which I commanded their fathers, and has not listened to my voice,

The children of Israel again did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, and served the Baals, the Ashtaroth, the gods of Syria, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the children of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines. They abandoned Yahweh, and didn’t serve him.

and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods; but he didn’t keep that which Yahweh commanded.

He removed the high places, and broke the pillars, and cut down the Asherah. He also broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, because in those days the children of Israel burned incense to it; and he called it Nehushtan.

All the houses also of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made to provoke Yahweh to anger, Josiah took away, and did to them according to all the acts that he had done in Bethel.

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

How long, Yahweh? Will you be angry forever? Will your jealousy burn like fire?

Let all them be shamed who serve engraved images, who boast in their idols. Worship him, all you gods!

They served their idols, which became a snare to them.

a people who provoke me to my face continually, sacrificing in gardens, and burning incense on bricks;

“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.

Behold, the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people from a land that is very far off: “Isn’t Yahweh in Zion? Isn’t her King in her?” “Why have they provoked me to anger with their engraved images, and with foreign idols?”

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

He stretched out the form of a hand, and took me by a lock of my head; and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and the sky, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the gate of the inner court that looks toward the north; where there was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provokes to jealousy.

Then he said to me, “Son of man, lift up your eyes now the way toward the north.” So I lifted up my eyes the way toward the north, and saw, northward of the gate of the altar this image of jealousy in the entry.

Now they sin more and more, and have made themselves molten images of their silver, even idols according to their own understanding, all of them the work of the craftsmen. They say of them, ‘They offer human sacrifice and kiss the calves.’

Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to deliver them in the day of Yahweh’s wrath, but the whole land will be devoured by the fire of his jealousy; for he will make an end, yes, a terrible end, of all those who dwell in the land.

Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?