Then your survivors will remember me among the nations where they are exiled. They will realize how I was crushed by their unfaithful heart which turned from me and by their eyes which lusted after their idols. They will loathe themselves because of the evil they have done and because of all their abominable practices.

“‘Because you did not remember the days of your youth and have enraged me with all these deeds, I hereby repay you for what you have done, declares the sovereign Lord. Have you not engaged in prostitution on top of all your other abominable practices?

When you bring foreigners, those uncircumcised in heart and in flesh, into my sanctuary, you desecrate it – even my house – when you offer my food, the fat and the blood. You have broken my covenant by all your abominable practices.

You implement the regulations of Omri, and all the practices of Ahab’s dynasty; you follow their policies. Therefore I will make you an appalling sight, the city’s inhabitants will be taunted derisively, and nations will mock all of you.”

“‘Do not defile yourselves with any of these things, for the nations which I am about to drive out before you have been defiled with all these things.

Do not profane your daughter by making her a prostitute, so that the land does not practice prostitution and become full of lewdness.

“‘The person who turns to the spirits of the dead and familiar spirits to commit prostitution by going after them, I will set my face against that person and cut him off from the midst of his people.

You must not walk in the statutes of the nation which I am about to drive out before you, because they have done all these things and I am filled with disgust against them.

The Lord said to me, “Look! I have already begun to give over Sihon and his land to you. Start right now to take his land as your possession.”

Those nations that you are about to dispossess listen to omen readers and diviners, but the Lord your God has not given you permission to do such things.

He followed all the sinful practices of his father before him. He was not wholeheartedly devoted to the Lord his God, as his ancestor David had been.

Yet he persisted in the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, who encouraged Israel to sin; he did not turn from them.

They burned incense on all the high places just like the nations whom the Lord had driven away from before them. Their evil practices made the Lord angry.

They were worshiping the Lord and at the same time serving their own gods in accordance with the practices of the nations from which they had been deported.

But they did not obey, and Manasseh misled them so that they sinned more than the nations whom the Lord had destroyed from before the Israelites.

But Manasseh misled the people of Judah and the residents of Jerusalem so that they sinned more than the nations whom the Lord had destroyed ahead of the Israelites.

The Israelites who were returning from the exile ate it, along with all those who had joined them in separating themselves from the uncleanness of the nations of the land to seek the Lord God of Israel.

Now Ezra had dedicated himself to the study of the law of the Lord, to its observance, and to teaching its statutes and judgments in Israel.

Even I and my relatives and my associates are lending them money and grain. But let us abandon this practice of seizing collateral!

The king then inquired of the wise men who were discerners of the times – for it was the royal custom to confer with all those who were proficient in laws and legalities.