The Lord has issued a decree against you: ¹  “Your dynasty will come to an end. ²  I will destroy the idols and images in the temples of your gods. I will desecrate ³  your grave – because you are accursed!” ⁴ 

their troubles multiply, they desire other gods. ¹  I will not pour out drink offerings of blood to their gods, ²  nor will I make vows in the name of their gods. ³ 

Do not chase after other gods until your shoes wear out and your throats become dry. ¹  But you say, ‘It is useless for you to try and stop me because I love those foreign gods ²  and want to pursue them!’

Assyria cannot save us; we will not ride warhorses. We will never again say, ‘Our gods’ to what our own hands have made. For only you will show compassion to Orphan Israel!” ¹ 

You must burn the images of their gods, but do not covet the silver and gold that covers them so much that you take it for yourself and thus become ensnared by it; for it is abhorrent ¹  to the Lord your God.

But you banished ¹  the Lord’s priests, Aaron’s descendants, and the Levites, and appointed your own priests just as the surrounding nations do! Anyone who comes to consecrate himself with a young bull or seven rams becomes a priest of these fake gods! ² 

He removed the foreign gods and images from the Lord’s temple and all the altars he had built on the hill of the Lord’s temple and in Jerusalem; he threw them outside the city.

They have gone back to the evil ways ¹  of their ancestors of old who refused to obey what I told them. They, too, have paid allegiance to ²  other gods and worshiped them. Both the nation of Israel and the nation of Judah ³  have violated the covenant I made with their ancestors.

These wicked people refuse to obey what I have said. ¹  They follow the stubborn inclinations of their own hearts and pay allegiance ²  to other gods by worshiping and serving them. So ³  they will become just like these linen shorts which are good for nothing.

That is what will result from your making me angry by what you are doing. ¹  You are making me angry by sacrificing to other gods here in the land of Egypt where you live. You will be destroyed for doing that! You will become an example used in curses ²  and an object of ridicule among all the nations of the earth. ³ 

Then all the men who were aware that their wives were sacrificing to other gods, as well as all their wives, answered Jeremiah. There was a great crowd of them representing all the people who lived in northern and southern Egypt. ¹  They answered,

The Lord said to me, “Go, show love to ¹  your wife ²  again, even though she loves ³  another man ⁴  and continually commits adultery. ⁵  Likewise, the Lord loves ⁶  the Israelites ⁷  although they turn to other gods and love to offer raisin cakes to idols.” ⁸ 

(Now Rachel had taken the idols and put them inside her camel’s saddle ¹  and sat on them.) ²  Laban searched the whole tent, but did not find them. ³ 

He answered, “But I see four men, untied and walking around in the midst of the fire! No harm has come to them! And the appearance of the fourth is like that of a god!” ¹ 

For the overseer ¹  must be blameless as one entrusted with God’s work, ²  not arrogant, not prone to anger, not a drunkard, not violent, not greedy for gain.

Everyone who has been fathered ¹  by God does not practice sin, ²  because ³  God’s ⁴  seed ⁵  resides in him, and thus ⁶  he is not able to sin, because he has been fathered by God.

that person ¹  will also drink of the wine of God’s anger ²  that has been mixed undiluted in the cup of his wrath, and he will be tortured with fire and sulfur ³  in front of the holy angels and in front of the Lamb.

Now the tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.

Are God’s consolations ¹  too trivial for you; ²  or a word spoken ³  in gentleness to you?

Acknowledge God’s power, ¹  his sovereignty over Israel, and the power he reveals in the skies! ²