“How can you say, ‘I have not made myself unclean. I have not paid allegiance to ¹  the gods called Baal.’ Just look at the way you have behaved in the Valley of Hinnom! ²  Think about the things you have done there! You are like a flighty, young female camel that rushes here and there, crisscrossing its path. ³ 

ב (Bet) The Lord ¹  destroyed ²  mercilessly ³  all the homes of Jacob’s descendants. ⁴  In his anger he tore down the fortified cities ⁵  of Daughter Judah. He knocked to the ground and humiliated the kingdom and its rulers. ⁶ 

When you present your sacrifices ¹  – when you make your sons pass through the fire – you defile yourselves with all your idols to this very day. Will I allow you to seek me, ²  O house of Israel? As surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, I will not allow you to seek me! ³ 

When you bring foreigners, those uncircumcised in heart and in flesh, into my sanctuary, you desecrate ¹  it – even my house – when you offer my food, the fat and the blood. You ²  have broken my covenant by all your abominable practices.

They will not pour out drink offerings of wine to the Lord; they will not please him with their sacrifices. Their sacrifices will be like bread eaten while in mourning; all those who eat them will make themselves ritually unclean. For their bread will be only to satisfy their appetite; it will not come into the temple of the Lord.

Therefore ¹  the land has become unclean and I have brought the punishment for its iniquity upon it, ²  so that the land has vomited out its inhabitants.

So do not make the land vomit you out because you defile it ¹  just as it has vomited out the nations ²  that were before you.

Do not turn to the spirits of the dead and do not seek familiar spirits ¹  to become unclean by them. I am the Lord your God.

They must not take a wife defiled by prostitution, ¹  nor are they to take a wife divorced from her husband, ²  for the priest ³  is holy to his God. ⁴ 

He must not marry ¹  a widow, a divorced woman, or one profaned by prostitution; he may only take a virgin from his people ²  as a wife.

You must not shed innocent blood ¹  in your land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, for that would make you guilty. ² 

You must not pity him, but purge out the blood of the innocent ¹  from Israel, so that it may go well with you.

you must do to him what he had intended to do to the accused. In this way you will purge ¹  evil from among you.

Then all the men of his city must stone him to death. In this way you will purge out ¹  wickedness from among you, and all Israel ²  will hear about it and be afraid.

There were also male cultic prostitutes ¹  in the land. They committed the same horrible sins as the nations ²  that the Lord had driven out from before the Israelites.

The men of the city said to Elisha, “Look, the city has a good location, as our ¹  master can see. But the water is bad and the land doesn’t produce crops.” ² 

Nevertheless you have done some good things; ¹  you removed ²  the Asherah poles from the land and you were determined to follow the Lord.” ³ 

They searched for their records in the genealogical materials, but none were found. They were therefore excluded ¹  from the priesthood.

A psalm of Asaph. O God, foreigners ²  have invaded your chosen land; ³  they have polluted your holy temple and turned Jerusalem ⁴  into a heap of ruins.

The Lord who commands armies planned it – to dishonor the pride that comes from all her beauty, ¹  to humiliate all the dignitaries of the earth.