We have behaved corruptly against you, not obeying the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments that you commanded your servant Moses.

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,

His people have been unfaithful ¹  to him; they have not acted like his children ²  – this is their sin. ³  They are a perverse ⁴  and deceitful generation.

I reported, ¹  “All of them are the most stubborn of rebels! ²  They are as hard as bronze or iron. They go about telling lies. They all deal corruptly.

He did what the Lord approved, just as his father Uzziah had done. ¹  (He did not, however, have the audacity to enter the temple.) ²  Yet the people were still sinning.

¹ The sinful nation is as good as dead, ²  the people weighed down by evil deeds. They are offspring who do wrong, children ³  who do wicked things. They have abandoned the Lord, and rejected the Holy One of Israel. ⁴  They are alienated from him. ⁵ 

After you have produced children and grandchildren and have been in the land a long time, ¹  if you become corrupt and make an image of any kind ²  and do other evil things before the Lord your God that enrage him, ³ 

And he said to me, “Get up, go down at once from here because your people whom you brought out of Egypt have sinned! They have quickly turned from the way I commanded them and have made for themselves a cast metal image.” ¹ 

For I know that after I die you will totally ¹  corrupt yourselves and turn away from the path I have commanded you to walk. Disaster will confront you in the days to come because you will act wickedly ²  before the Lord, inciting him to anger because of your actions.” ³ 

The Lord spoke to Moses: “Go quickly, descend, ¹  because your ²  people, whom you brought up from the land of Egypt, have acted corruptly.

When a leader died, the next generation ¹  would again ²  act more wickedly than the previous one. ³  They would follow after other gods, worshiping them ⁴  and bowing down to them. They did not give up ⁵  their practices or their stubborn ways.

But once he became powerful, his pride destroyed him. ¹  He disobeyed ²  the Lord his God. He entered the Lord’s temple to offer incense on the incense altar.

If the wicked are shown mercy, they do not learn about justice. ¹  Even in a land where right is rewarded, they act unjustly; ²  they do not see the Lord’s majesty revealed.

Have you not copied their behavior ¹  and practiced their abominable deeds? In a short time ²  you became even more depraved in all your conduct than they were!

I thought, ¹  ‘Certainly you will respect ²  me! Now you will accept correction!’ If she had done so, her home ³  would not be destroyed ⁴  by all the punishments I have threatened. ⁵  But they eagerly sinned in everything they did. ⁶