Hammered-out silver is brought from Tarshish ¹  and gold is brought from Uphaz ²  to cover those idols. ³  They are the handiwork of carpenters and goldsmiths. ⁴  They are clothed in blue and purple clothes. ⁵  They are all made by skillful workers. ⁶ 

Do any of the worthless idols ¹  of the nations cause rain to fall? Do the skies themselves send showers? Is it not you, O Lord our God, who does this? ²  So we put our hopes in you ³  because you alone do all this.”

Then I said, ¹  “Lord, you give me strength and protect me. You are the one I can run to for safety when I am in trouble. ²  Nations from all over the earth will come to you and say, ‘Our ancestors had nothing but false gods – worthless idols that could not help them at all. ³ 

Yet my people have forgotten me and offered sacrifices to worthless idols! This makes them stumble along in the way they live and leave the old reliable path of their fathers. ¹  They have left them to walk in bypaths, in roads that are not smooth and level. ² 

“Announce ¹  the news among the nations! Proclaim it! Signal for people to pay attention! ²  Declare the news! Do not hide it! Say: ‘Babylon will be captured. Bel ³  will be put to shame. Marduk will be dismayed. Babylon’s idols will be put to shame. Her disgusting images ⁴  will be dismayed. ⁵ 

In all your dwellings, the cities will be laid waste and the high places ruined so that your altars will be laid waste and ruined, your idols will be shattered and demolished, your incense altars will be broken down, and your works wiped out. ¹ 

Then your survivors will remember me among the nations where they are exiled. They will realize ¹  how I was crushed by their unfaithful ²  heart which turned from me and by their eyes which lusted after their idols. They will loathe themselves ³  because of the evil they have done and because of all their abominable practices.

Therefore speak to them and say to them, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: When any one from the house of Israel erects his idols in his heart and sets the obstacle leading to his iniquity before his face, and then consults a prophet, I the Lord am determined to answer him personally according to the enormity of his idolatry. ¹ 

For when anyone from the house of Israel, or the foreigner who lives in Israel, separates himself from me and erects his idols in his heart and sets the obstacle leading to his iniquity before his face, and then consults a prophet to seek something from me, I the Lord am determined to answer him personally.

This is what the sovereign Lord says: Because your lust ¹  was poured out and your nakedness was uncovered in your prostitution with your lovers, and because of all your detestable idols, and because of the blood of your children you have given to them,

When you present your sacrifices ¹  – when you make your sons pass through the fire – you defile yourselves with all your idols to this very day. Will I allow you to seek me, ²  O house of Israel? As surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, I will not allow you to seek me! ³ 

you are guilty because of the blood you shed and defiled by the idols you made. You have hastened the day of your doom; ¹  the end of your years has come. ²  Therefore I will make ³  you an object of scorn to the nations, an object to be mocked by all lands.

“‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: I will destroy the idols, and put an end to the gods of Memphis. There will no longer be a prince from the land of Egypt; so I will make the land of Egypt fearful. ¹ 

They will not defile themselves with their idols, their detestable things, and all their rebellious deeds. I will save them from all their unfaithfulness ¹  by which they sinned. I will purify them; they will become my people and I will become their God.

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 

Even now they persist in sin! ¹  They make metal images for themselves, idols that they skillfully fashion ²  from their own silver; all of them are nothing but the work of craftsmen! There is a saying about them: ³  “Those who sacrifice ⁴  to the calf idol are calf kissers!” ⁵ 

And also on that day,” says the Lord who rules over all, “I will remove ¹  the names of the idols from the land and they will never again be remembered. Moreover, I will remove the prophets and the unclean spirit from the land.

And what mutual agreement does the temple of God have with idols? For we are ¹  the temple of the living God, just as God said, “I will live in them ²  and will walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.” ³ 

But I have a few things against you: You have some people there who follow the teaching of Balaam, ¹  who instructed Balak to put a stumbling block ²  before the people ³  of Israel so they would eat food sacrificed to idols and commit sexual immorality. ⁴