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

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

So the Israelites ¹  removed the Baals and images of Ashtoreth. They served only 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 

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

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,

Instead they have followed the stubborn inclinations of their own hearts. They have paid allegiance to ¹  the gods called Baal, ²  as their fathers ³  taught them to do.

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.

Elijah ¹  replied, “I have not brought disaster ²  on Israel. But you and your father’s dynasty have, by abandoning the Lord’s commandments and following the Baals.

Then they cried out to the Lord and admitted, ¹  ‘We have sinned, for we have forsaken the Lord and have served the Baals and the images of Ashtoreth. ²  Now deliver us from the hand of our enemies so that we may serve you.’ 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.

After Gideon died, the Israelites again prostituted themselves to the Baals. They made Baal-Berith ¹  their god.

“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.

Elijah said to them: ¹  “I am the only prophet of the Lord who is left, but there are 450 prophets of Baal.

The Israelites again did evil in the Lord’s sight. ¹  They worshiped ²  the Baals and the Ashtars, ³  as well as the gods of Syria, Sidon, ⁴  Moab, the Ammonites, and the Philistines. ⁵  They abandoned the Lord and did not worship ⁶  him.

He ordered the altars of the Baals to be torn down, ¹  and broke the incense altars that were above them. He smashed the Asherah poles, idols and images, crushed them up and sprinkled the dust over the tombs of those who had sacrificed to 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 

That very day Gideon’s father named him Jerub-Baal, ¹  because he had said, “Let Baal fight with him, for it was his altar that was pulled down.”