He tore down the quarters ¹  of the male cultic prostitutes in the Lord’s temple, where women were weaving shrines ²  for Asherah.

you who practice ritual sex ¹  under the oaks and every green tree, who slaughter children near the streams under the rocky overhangs. ² 

This is what you must do on the seventh day of the month for anyone who sins inadvertently or through ignorance; so you will make atonement for the temple.

Thus they will provide the lamb, the grain offering, and the olive oil morning by morning, as a perpetual burnt offering.

If ¹  you had known what this means: ‘I want mercy and not sacrifice,’ ²  you would not have condemned the innocent.

Now there were six stone water jars there for Jewish ceremonial washing, ¹  each holding twenty or thirty gallons. ² 

which I was doing when they found me in the temple, ritually purified, ¹  without a crowd or a disturbance. ² 

For circumcision ¹  has its value if you practice the law, but ²  if you break the law, ³  your circumcision has become uncircumcision.

I do not set aside ¹  God’s grace, because if righteousness ²  could come through the law, then Christ died for nothing! ³ 

They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not understand what they are saying or the things they insist on so confidently. ¹ 

“This is the ordinance of the law which the Lord has commanded: ‘Instruct ¹  the Israelites to bring ²  you a red ³  heifer ⁴  without blemish, which has no defect ⁵  and has never carried a yoke.

“Tell Aaron and his sons, ‘This is the law of the sin offering. In the place where the burnt offering is slaughtered the sin offering must be slaughtered before the Lord. It is most holy. ¹ 

This is the law ¹  of the diseased infection in the garment of wool or linen, or the warp or woof, or any article of leather, for pronouncing it clean or unclean. ² 

and the priest is to make atonement for him with the ram of the guilt offering before the Lord for his sin that he has committed, ¹  and he will be forgiven ²  of his sin ³  that he has committed.

or when jealous feelings come over a man and he becomes suspicious of his wife; then he must have the woman stand before the Lord, and the priest will carry out all this law upon her.

“‘Now this is the law of the Nazirite: When the days of his separation are fulfilled, he must be brought ¹  to the entrance of the tent of meeting,

“‘This is the law: When a man dies ¹  in a tent, anyone who comes into the tent and all who are in the tent will be ceremonially unclean seven days.

He passed his son ¹  through the fire ²  and practiced divination and omen reading. He set up a ritual pit to conjure up underworld spirits, and appointed magicians to supervise it. ³  He did a great amount of evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger. ⁴ 

They performed the service of their God and the service of purification, along with the singers and gatekeepers, according to the commandment of David and ¹  his son Solomon.

The sovereign master ¹  says, “These people say they are loyal to me; ²  they say wonderful things about me, ³  but they are not really loyal to me. ⁴  Their worship consists of nothing but man-made ritual. ⁵