A man uses it to make a fire; ¹  he takes some of it and warms himself. Yes, he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Then he makes a god and worships it; he makes an idol and bows down to it. ² 

They are worthless, mere objects to be mocked. ¹  When the time comes to punish them, they will be destroyed.

They are worthless, objects to be ridiculed. When the time comes to punish them, they will be destroyed.

“Therefore, as surely as I live, says the sovereign Lord, because you defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable idols and with all your abominable practices, I will withdraw; my eye will not pity you, nor will I spare ¹  you.

He stretched out the form ¹  of a hand and grabbed me by a lock of hair on my head. Then a wind ²  lifted me up between the earth and sky and brought me to Jerusalem ³  by means of divine visions, to the door of the inner gate which faces north where the statue ⁴  which provokes to jealousy was located.

He said to me, “Do you see, son of man, what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, each in the chamber of his idolatrous images? ¹  For they think, ‘The Lord does not see us! The Lord has abandoned the land!’”

you must drive out all the inhabitants of the land before you. Destroy all their carved images, all their molten images, ¹  and demolish their high places.

I say this ¹  so you will not corrupt yourselves by making an image in the form of any kind of figure. This includes the likeness of a human male or female,

The Danites worshiped ¹  the carved image. Jonathan, descendant ²  of Gershom, son of Moses, ³  and his descendants ⁴  served as priests for the tribe of Dan until the time of the exile.

They worshiped ¹  Micah’s carved image ²  the whole time God’s authorized shrine ³  was in Shiloh.

You should not turn aside after empty things that can’t profit and can’t deliver, since they are empty. ¹ 

Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told to you since the very beginning? Have you not understood from the time the earth’s foundations were made?

“Present your argument,” says the Lord. “Produce your evidence,” ¹  says Jacob’s king. ² 

I look, but there is no one, among them there is no one who serves as an adviser, that I might ask questions and receive answers.

These people continually and blatantly offend me ¹  as they sacrifice in their sacred orchards ²  and burn incense on brick altars. ³ 

In this way ¹  I will pass sentence ²  on the people of Jerusalem and Judah ³  because of all their wickedness. For they rejected me and offered sacrifices to other gods, worshiping what they made with their own hands.” ⁴ 

Has a nation ever changed its gods (even though they are not really gods at all)? But my people have exchanged me, their glorious God, ¹  for a god that cannot help them at all! ² 

Because she took her prostitution so lightly, she defiled the land ¹  through her adulterous worship of gods made of wood and stone. ² 

Then those living in the towns of Judah and in Jerusalem will ¹  go and cry out for help to the gods to whom they have been sacrificing. However, those gods will by no means ²  be able to save them when disaster strikes them.

This man, Jeconiah, will be like a broken pot someone threw away. He will be like a clay vessel ¹  that no one wants. ²  Why will he and his children be forced into exile? Why will they be thrown out into a country they know nothing about? ³