Exile Because of Idolatry
7 And this occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God,
1who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods
8
2and walked in the customs of the nations whom the LORD drove out before the people of Israel,
3and in the customs that the kings of Israel had practiced.
9
And the people of Israel did secretly against the LORD their God things that were not right. They built for themselves high places in all their towns,
4from watchtower to fortified city.
10
They set up for themselves
5pillars and Asherim on every high hill and under every green tree,
11
and there they made offerings on all the high places, as the nations did whom the LORD carried away before them. And they did wicked things, provoking the LORD to anger,
12
and they served idols,
6of which the LORD had said to them, "You shall not do this."
13
Yet the LORD
7warned Israel and Judah
8by every prophet
9and every seer, saying,
10"Turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes, in accordance with all the Law that I commanded your fathers, and that I sent to you by my servants the prophets."
14
But they would not listen,
11but were stubborn, as their fathers had been, who did not believe in the LORD their God.
15
They despised his statutes
12and his covenant that he made with their fathers and the warnings that he gave them. They went after
13false idols
14and became false, and they followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the
15LORD had commanded them that they should not do like them.
16
And they abandoned all the commandments of the LORD their God, and made for themselves metal images of
16two calves; and they
17made an Asherah and
18worshiped all the host of heaven and served
19Baal.
17
20And they burned their sons and their daughters as offerings and used
21divination and
22omens and
23sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking him to anger.
18
Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel and removed them out of his sight. None was left but
24the tribe of Judah only.
19
25Judah also did not keep the commandments of the LORD their God, but walked in the customs that Israel had introduced.
20
And the LORD rejected all the descendants of Israel and afflicted them
26and gave them into the hand of plunderers, until he had cast them out of his sight.
21
27When he had torn Israel from the house of David,
28they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king. And Jeroboam drove Israel from following the LORD
29and made them commit great sin.
22
The people of Israel walked in all the sins that Jeroboam did. They did not depart from them,
23
until the LORD removed Israel out of his sight,
30as he had spoken by all his servants the prophets.
31So Israel was exiled from their own land to Assyria until this day.