Ezekiel 20:31

Listen to Ezekiel 20:31
31 When you offer your gifts, sacrificing your sons in the fire, [a] you continue to defile yourselves with all your idols to this day. So should I be consulted by you, O house of Israel? As surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, I will not be consulted by you!

Ezekiel 20:31 Meaning and Commentary

Ezekiel 20:31

For when ye offer your gifts
And sacrifices to idols. The Septuagint and Arabic versions render it, the firstfruits of your gifts;
it may design their firstborn; see ( Ezekiel 20:26 ) as the following clause seems to explain it: when ye make your sons to pass through the fire;
or between two fires to Moloch, as their fathers had done before them; ye pollute yourselves with all your idols, even unto this day;
by worshipping idols, or dunghill gods, as the word signifies, as often observed; they defiled themselves with those filthy things, which they continued to do to that very day, and so became more and more polluted; and were as their fathers had been, and therefore must expect to be used in like manner: and shall I be inquired of by you, O house of Israel?
can you think that I will suffer you to come and inquire of me or to make your requests to me? or can you hope to have an answer from me; at least a favourable one, such as you could wish for? as I live, saith the Lord God, I will not be inquired of by you;
so confirming again with an oath what he had before declared, ( Ezekiel 20:3 ) , wherefore they might assure themselves that they would not be acceptable to him, neither their persons nor petitions, or be regarded by him.

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Ezekiel 20:31 In-Context

29 So I asked them: ‘What is this high place to which you go?’ (And to this day it is called Bamah. )
30 Therefore tell the house of Israel that this is what the Lord GOD says: Will you defile yourselves the way your fathers did, prostituting yourselves with their abominations?
31 When you offer your gifts, sacrificing your sons in the fire, you continue to defile yourselves with all your idols to this day. So should I be consulted by you, O house of Israel? As surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, I will not be consulted by you!
32 When you say, ‘Let us be like the nations, like the peoples of the lands, serving wood and stone,’ what you have in mind will never come to pass.
33 As surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, with a strong hand, an outstretched arm, and outpoured wrath I will rule over you.

Footnotes 1

  • [a] Literally making your sons pass through the fire
The Berean Bible and Majority Bible texts are officially placed into the public domain