The people of Moab will be disappointed by their god Chemosh. They will be as disappointed as the people of Israel were when they put their trust in the calf god at Bethel. ¹ 

So I said to them, What is this high place you go to?’” (So it is called “High Place” ¹  to this day.)

Slanderous men shed blood within you. ¹  Those who live within you eat pagan sacrifices on the mountains; ²  they commit obscene acts among you. ³ 

They will repay you for your obscene conduct, and you will be punished for idol worship. ¹  Then you will know that I am the sovereign Lord.”

For the Israelites ¹  must live many days without a king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred fertility pillar, without ephod or idols.

“Go to Bethel ¹  and rebel! ²  At Gilgal ³  rebel some more! Bring your sacrifices in ⁴  the morning, your tithes on ⁵  the third day!

“Brother ¹  will hand over brother to death, and a father his child. Children will rise against ²  parents and have them put to death.

With regard to food sacrificed to idols, we know that “we all have knowledge.” ¹  Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.

For this reason, if food causes my brother or sister to sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I may not cause one of them ¹  to sin.

Outside are the dogs and the sorcerers ¹  and the sexually immoral, and the murderers, and the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood! ² 

They have quickly turned aside ¹  from the way that I commanded them – they have made for themselves a molten calf and have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, which brought you up from the land of Egypt.’”

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 

A carpenter takes measurements; ¹  he marks out an outline of its form; ²  he scrapes ³  it with chisels, and marks it with a compass. He patterns it after the human form, ⁴  like a well-built human being, and puts it in a shrine. ⁵ 

No one thinks to himself, nor do they comprehend or understand and say to themselves: ‘I burned half of it in the fire – yes, I baked bread over the coals; I roasted meat and ate it. With the rest of it should I make a disgusting idol? Should I bow down to dry wood?’ ¹ 

Tell me! Present the evidence! ¹  Let them consult with one another! Who predicted this in the past? Who announced it beforehand? Was it not I, the Lord? I have no peer, there is no God but me, a God who vindicates and delivers; ²  there is none but me.

They say to a wooden idol, ¹  ‘You are my father.’ They say to a stone image, ‘You gave birth to me.’ ²  Yes, they have turned away from me instead of turning to me. ³  Yet when they are in trouble, they say, ‘Come and save us!’

He said to me, “Do you see, son of man, what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, each in the chamber of his idolatrous images? ¹  For they think, ‘The Lord does not see us! The Lord has abandoned the land!’”

When I found Israel, it was like finding grapes in the wilderness. I viewed your ancestors ¹  like an early fig on a fig tree in its first season. Then they came to Baal-Peor and they dedicated themselves to shame – they became as detestable as what they loved.

But to the cowards, unbelievers, detestable persons, murderers, the sexually immoral, and those who practice magic spells, ¹  idol worshipers, ²  and all those who lie, their place ³  will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur. ⁴  That ⁵  is the second death.”

They must not live in your land, lest they make you sin against me, for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare ¹  to you.”