So in this way Jacob’s sin will be forgiven, ¹  and this is how they will show they are finished sinning: ²  They will make all the stones of the altars ³  like crushed limestone, and the Asherah poles and the incense altars will no longer stand. ⁴ 

“Indeed, ¹  long ago you threw off my authority and refused to be subject to me. ²  You said, ‘I will not serve you.’ ³  Instead, you gave yourself to other gods on every high hill and under every green tree, like a prostitute sprawls out before her lovers. ⁴ 

“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 

However, you must confess that you have done wrong, ¹  and that you have rebelled against the Lord your God. You must confess ²  that you have given yourself to ³  foreign gods under every green tree, and have not obeyed my commands,’ says the Lord.

But I see the prophets of Jerusalem ¹  doing something just as shocking. They are unfaithful to me and continually prophesy lies. ²  So they give encouragement to people who are doing evil, with the result that they do not stop their evildoing. ³  I consider all of them as bad as the people of Sodom, and the citizens of Jerusalem as bad as the people of Gomorrah. ⁴ 

This will happen to them because they have done what is shameful ¹  in Israel. They have committed adultery with their neighbors’ wives and have spoken lies while claiming my authority. ²  They have spoken words that I did not command them to speak. I know what they have done. I have been a witness to it,’ says the Lord.” ³ 

Then you will know that I am the Lord – when their dead lie among their idols around their altars, on every high hill and all the mountaintops, under every green tree and every leafy oak, ¹  the places where they have offered fragrant incense to all their idols.

He stretched out the form ¹  of a hand and grabbed me by a lock of hair on my head. Then a wind ²  lifted me up between the earth and sky and brought me to Jerusalem ³  by means of divine visions, to the door of the inner gate which faces north where the statue ⁴  which provokes to jealousy was located.

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,

I will give you into their hands and they will destroy your chambers and tear down your pavilions. They will strip you of your clothing and take your beautiful jewelry and leave you naked and bare.

I brought them to the land which I swore ¹  to give them, but whenever they saw any high hill or leafy tree, they offered their sacrifices there and presented the offerings that provoke me to anger. They offered their soothing aroma there and poured out their drink offerings.

I will not punish your daughters when they commit prostitution, nor your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery. For the men consort with harlots, they sacrifice with temple prostitutes. It is true: ¹  “A people that lacks understanding will come to ruin!”

For there are some eunuchs who were that way from birth, ¹  and some who were made eunuchs ²  by others, ³  and some who became eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who is able to accept this should accept it.”

Do not deprive each other, except by mutual agreement for a specified time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. ¹  Then resume your relationship, ²  so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

Husbands, in the same way, treat your wives with consideration as the weaker partners ¹  and show them honor as fellow heirs of the grace of life. In this way nothing will hinder your prayers. ² 

When all this was over, the Israelites ¹  who were in the cities of Judah went out and smashed the sacred pillars, cut down the Asherah poles, and demolished ²  all the high places and altars throughout Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim, and Manasseh. ³  Then all the Israelites returned to their own homes in their cities. ⁴