Deuteronomy 32:15-17

Israel’s Rebellion

32:15 But Jeshurun ¹  became fat and kicked,

you ²  got fat, thick, and stuffed!

Then he deserted the God who made him,

and treated the Rock who saved him with contempt.

32:16 They made him jealous with other gods, ³ 

they enraged him with abhorrent idols. ⁴ 

32:17 They sacrificed to demons, not God,

to gods they had not known;

to new gods who had recently come along,

gods your ancestors ⁵  had not known about.

Ezekiel 16:17-21

16:17 You also took your beautiful jewelry, made of my gold and my silver I had given to you, and made for yourself male images and engaged in prostitution ⁶  with them. 16:18 You took your embroidered clothing and used it to cover them; you offered my olive oil and my incense to them. 16:19 As for my food that I gave you – the fine flour, olive oil, and honey I fed you – you placed it before them as a soothing aroma. That is exactly what happened, declares the sovereign Lord.

16:20 “‘You took your sons and your daughters whom you bore to me and you sacrificed them ⁷  as food for the idols to eat. As if your prostitution not enough, 16:21 you slaughtered my children and sacrificed them to the idols. ⁸ 

Daniel 5:2-4

5:2 While under the influence ⁹  of the wine, Belshazzar issued an order to bring in the gold and silver vessels – the ones that Nebuchadnezzar his father ¹⁰  had confiscated ¹¹  from the temple in Jerusalem ¹²  – so that the king and his nobles, together with his wives and his concubines, could drink from them. ¹³  5:3 So they brought the gold and silver ¹⁴  vessels that had been confiscated from the temple, the house of God ¹⁵  in Jerusalem, and the king and his nobles, together with his wives and concubines, drank from them. 5:4 As they drank wine, they praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone.

Daniel 5:23

5:23 Instead, you have exalted yourself against the Lord of heaven. You brought before you the vessels from his temple, and you and your nobles, together with your wives and concubines, drank wine from them. You praised the gods of silver, gold, bronze, iron, wood, and stone – gods ¹⁶  that cannot see or hear or comprehend! But you have not glorified the God who has in his control ¹⁷  your very breath and all your ways!

Hosea 2:8-9

Agricultural Fertility Withdrawn from Israel

2:8 Yet ¹⁸  until now ¹⁹  she has refused to acknowledge ²⁰  that I ²¹  was the one

who gave her the grain, the new wine, and the olive oil;

and that it was I who ²²  lavished on her the silver and gold –

which they ²³  used in worshiping Baal! ²⁴ 

2:9 Therefore, I will take back ²⁵  my grain during the harvest time ²⁶ 

and my new wine when it ripens; ²⁷ 

I will take away my wool and my flax

which I had provided ²⁸  in order to clothe her. ²⁹ 

Hosea 2:13

2:13 “I will punish her for the festival days

when she burned incense to the Baal idols; ³⁰ 

she adorned herself with earrings and jewelry,

and went after her lovers,

but ³¹  she forgot me!” ³²  says the Lord.

¹ tn To make the continuity of the referent clear, some English versions substitute “Jacob” here (NAB, NRSV) while others replace “Jeshurun” with “Israel” (NCV, CEV, NLT) or “the Lord’s people” (TEV).

² tc The LXX reads the third person masculine singular (“he”) for the MT second person masculine singular (“you”), but such alterations are unnecessary in Hebrew poetic texts where subjects fluctuate frequently and without warning.

³ tc Heb “with strange (things).” The Vulgate actually supplies diis (“gods”).

⁴ tn Heb “abhorrent (things)” (cf. NRSV). A number of English versions understand this as referring to “idols” (NAB, NIV, NCV, CEV), while NLT supplies “acts.”

⁵ tn Heb “your fathers.”

⁶ tn Or perhaps “and worshiped them,” if the word “prostitution” is understood in a figurative rather than a literal sense (cf. CEV, NLT).

⁷ sn The sacrifice of children was prohibited in Lev 18:21; 20:2; Deut 12:31; 18:10.

⁸ tn Heb “and you gave them, by passing them through to them.” Some believe this alludes to the pagan practice of making children pass through the fire.

⁹ tn Or perhaps, “when he had tasted” (cf. NASB) in the sense of officially initiating the commencement of the banquet. The translation above seems preferable, however, given the clear evidence of inebriation in the context (cf. also CEV “he got drunk and ordered”).

¹⁰ tn Or “ancestor”; or “predecessor” (also in vv. 11, 13, 18). The Aramaic word translated “father” can on occasion denote these other relationships.

¹¹ tn Or “taken.”

¹² map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.

¹³ sn Making use of sacred temple vessels for an occasion of reveling and drunkenness such as this would have been a religious affront of shocking proportions to the Jewish captives.

¹⁴ tc The present translation reads וְכַסְפָּא (vÿkhaspa’, “and the silver”) with Theodotion and the Vulgate. Cf. v. 2. The form was probably accidentally dropped from the Aramaic text by homoioteleuton.

¹⁵ tn Aram “the temple of the house of God.” The phrase seems rather awkward. The Vulgate lacks “of the house of God,” while Theodotion and the Syriac lack “the house.”

¹⁶ tn Aram “which.”

¹⁷ tn Aram “in whose hand [are].”

¹⁸ tn Or “For” (so KJV, NASB); or “But” (so NCV).

¹⁹ tn The phrase “until now” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity and smoothness.

²⁰ tn Heb “she does not know” (so NASB, NCV); or “she does not acknowledge.”

²¹ tn The 1st person common singular independent personal pronoun אָנֹכִי (’anokhi, “I”) is emphatic, since the subject of this verbal clause is already explicit in the verb נָתַתִּי (natatti, Qal perfect 1st person common singular: “I gave”).

²² tn The phrase “that it was I who” does not appear in the Hebrew text here, but is supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity.

²³ sn The third person plural here is an obvious reference to the Israelites who had been unfaithful to the Lord in spite of all that he had done for them. To maintain the imagery of Israel as the prostitute, a third person feminine singular would be called for; in the interest of literary consistency this has been supplied in some English translations (e.g., NCV, TEV, CEV, NLT).

²⁴ tn Heb “for Baal” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV); cf. TEV “in the worship of Baal.”

²⁵ tn Heb “I will return and I will take.” The two verbs joined with vav conjunction form a verbal hendiadys in which the first verb functions adverbially and the second retains its full verbal sense (GKC 386-87 §120.d, h): אָשׁוּב וְלָקַחְתִּי (’ashuv vÿlaqakhti) means “I will take back.”

²⁶ tn Heb “in its time” (so NAB, NRSV).

²⁷ tn Heb “in its season” (so NAB, NASB, NRSV).

²⁸ tn The words “which I had provided” are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons; cf. NIV “intended to cover.”

²⁹ tn Heb “to cover her nakedness” (so KJV and many other English versions); TEV “for clothing.”

³⁰ tn Heb “the days of the Baals, to whom she burned incense.” The word “festival” is supplied to clarify the referent of “days,” and the word “idols” is supplied in light of the plural “Baals” (cf. NLT “her images of Baal”).

³¹ tn The vav prefixed to a nonverb (וְאֹתִי, vé’oti) introduces a disjunctive contrastive clause, which is rhetorically powerful.

³² tn The accusative direct object pronoun וְאֹתִי (vé’oti, “me”) is emphatic in the word order of this clause (cf. NIV “but me she forgot”), emphasizing the heinous inappropriateness of Israel’s departure from the Lord.