He followed in the footsteps of ¹  the kings of Israel; he also made images of the Baals.

Now Abimelech son of Jerub-Baal went to Shechem to see his mother’s relatives. ¹  He said to them and to his mother’s entire extended family, ² 

“Now, if you have shown loyalty and integrity when you made Abimelech king, if you have done right to Jerub-Baal and his family, ¹  if you have properly repaid him ²  –

So if you have shown loyalty and integrity to Jerub-Baal and his family ¹  today, then may Abimelech bring you happiness and may you bring him happiness! ² 

So the Lord sent Jerub-Baal, ¹  Barak, ²  Jephthah, and Samuel, ³  and he delivered you from the hand of the enemies all around you, and you were able to live securely.

“I will punish her for the festival days when she burned incense to the Baal idols; ¹  she adorned herself with earrings and jewelry, and went after her lovers, but ²  she forgot me!” ³  says the Lord.

The Israelites did evil in the Lord’s sight. ¹  They forgot the Lord their God and worshiped the Baals and the Asherahs. ² 

When all the leaders of the Tower of Shechem ¹  heard the news, they went to the stronghold ²  of the temple of El-Berith. ³ 

The Israelites cried out for help to the Lord: “We have sinned against you. We abandoned our God and worshiped ¹  the Baals.”

Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, including a detailed account of how he killed all the prophets with the sword.

The Lord was with Jehoshaphat because he followed in his ancestor ¹  David’s footsteps at the beginning of his reign. ²  He did not seek the Baals,

For ¹  I will remove the names of the Baal idols ²  from your lips, ³  so that you will never again utter their names!” ⁴ 

But the more I summoned ¹  them, the farther they departed from me. ²  They sacrificed to the Baal idols and burned incense to images.

My people are obsessed ¹  with turning away from me; ²  they call to Baal, ³  but he will never exalt them!

“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 

(Wicked Athaliah and her sons had broken into God’s temple and used all the holy items of the Lord’s temple in their worship of the Baals.)

He rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had destroyed; he set up altars for the Baals and made Asherah poles. He bowed down to all the stars in the sky ¹  and worshiped ²  them.

From earliest times our worship of that shameful god, Baal, has taken away ¹  all that our ancestors ²  worked for. It has taken away our flocks and our herds, and even our sons and daughters.

They turn to Baal; ¹  they are like an unreliable bow. Their leaders will fall by the sword because their prayers to Baal ²  have made me angry. So people will disdain them in the land of Egypt. ³ 

The Israelites did evil before ¹  the Lord by worshiping ²  the Baals.