Your altars will be ruined and your incense altars will be broken. I will throw down your slain in front of your idols.

I will place the corpses of the people of Israel in front of their idols, and I will scatter your bones around your altars.

I will do this in order to capture the hearts of the house of Israel, who have alienated themselves from me on account of all their idols.’

I will do these things to you because you engaged in prostitution with the nations, polluting yourself with their idols.

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

So I poured my anger on them because of the blood they shed on the land and because of the idols with which they defiled it.

I will sprinkle you with pure water and you will be clean from all your impurities. I will purify you from all your idols.

“‘As for you, O house of Israel, this is what the sovereign Lord says: Each of you go and serve your idols, if you will not listen to me. But my holy name will not be profaned again by your sacrifices and your idols.

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.

So I went in and looked. I noticed every figure of creeping thing and beast – detestable images – and every idol of the house of Israel, engraved on the wall all around.

“Son of man, these men have erected their idols in their hearts and placed the obstacle leading to their iniquity right before their faces. Should I really allow them to seek me?

“Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: Return! Turn from your idols, and turn your faces away from your abominations.

oppresses the poor and the needy, commits robbery, does not give back what was given in pledge, prays to idols, performs abominable acts,

He does not eat pagan sacrifices on the mountains, does not pray to the idols of the house of Israel, does not defile his neighbor’s wife,

I said to them, “Each of you must get rid of the detestable idols you keep before you, and do not defile yourselves with the idols of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.”

I did this because they rejected my regulations, did not follow my statutes, and desecrated my Sabbaths; for their hearts followed their idols.

“‘But I said to their children in the wilderness, “Do not follow the practices of your fathers; do not observe their regulations, nor defile yourselves with their idols.

I did this because they did not observe my regulations, they rejected my statutes, they desecrated my Sabbaths, and their eyes were fixed on their fathers’ idols.

Then say, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: O city, who spills blood within herself (which brings on her doom), and who makes herself idols (which results in impurity),

She bestowed her sexual favors on them; all of them were the choicest young men of Assyria. She defiled herself with all whom she desired – with all their idols.