Then your survivors will remember me among the nations where they are exiled. They will realize ¹  how I was crushed by their unfaithful ²  heart which turned from me and by their eyes which lusted after their idols. They will loathe themselves ³  because of the evil they have done and because of all their abominable practices.

you are guilty because of the blood you shed and defiled by the idols you made. You have hastened the day of your doom; ¹  the end of your years has come. ²  Therefore I will make ³  you an object of scorn to the nations, an object to be mocked by all lands.

So then, my dear friends, flee from idolatry.

These nations are worshiping the Lord and at the same time serving their idols; their sons and grandsons do just as their fathers have done, to this very day.

You will desecrate your silver-plated idols ¹  and your gold-plated images. ²  You will throw them away as if they were a menstrual rag, saying to them, “Get out!”

Such idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field. They cannot talk. They must be carried because they cannot walk. Do not be afraid of them because they cannot hurt you. And they do not have any power to help you.” ¹ 

“‘You took your sons and your daughters whom you bore to me and you sacrificed them ¹  as food for the idols to eat. As if your prostitution not enough,

For the household gods ¹  have spoken wickedness, the soothsayers have seen a lie, and as for the dreamers, they have disclosed emptiness and give comfort in vain. Therefore the people set out like sheep and become scattered because they have no shepherd. ² 

But this knowledge is not shared by all. And some, by being accustomed to idols in former times, eat this food as an idol sacrifice, and their conscience, because it is weak, is defiled.

you who practice ritual sex ¹  under the oaks and every green tree, who slaughter children near the streams under the rocky overhangs. ² 

I will do to you what I have never done before and will never do again because of all your abominable practices. ¹ 

Now they must put away their spiritual prostitution and the pillars of their kings far from me, and then I will live among them forever.

For the Israelites ¹  must live many days without a king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred fertility pillar, without ephod or idols.

Instead, this is what you must do to them: You must tear down their altars, shatter their sacred pillars, ¹  cut down their sacred Asherah poles, ²  and burn up their idols.

When these men broke into Micah’s house and stole ¹  the carved image, the ephod, the personal idols, and the metal image, the priest said to them, “What are you doing?”

he tore down the altars and Asherah poles, demolished the idols, and smashed all the incense altars throughout the land of Israel. Then he returned to Jerusalem.

This is what the Lord says: “What fault could your ancestors ¹  have possibly found in me that they strayed so far from me? ²  They paid allegiance to ³  worthless idols, and so became worthless to me. ⁴ 

Yet my people have forgotten me and offered sacrifices to worthless idols! This makes them stumble along in the way they live and leave the old reliable path of their fathers. ¹  They have left them to walk in bypaths, in roads that are not smooth and level. ² 

They rendered the beauty of his ornaments into pride, ¹  and with it they made their abominable images – their detestable idols. Therefore I will render it filthy to them.

They consult their wooden idols, and their diviner’s staff answers with an oracle. The wind of prostitution blows them astray; they commit spiritual adultery ¹  against their God.