They offer burnt sacrifices to the Lord every morning and every evening, along with fragrant incense. They arrange the Bread of the Presence on a ritually clean table and light the lamps on the gold lampstand every evening. Certainly we are observing the Lord our God’s regulations, but you have rejected him.

God’s Spirit energized Zechariah son of Jehoiada the priest. He stood up before the people and said to them, “This is what God says: ‘Why are you violating the commands of the Lord? You will not be prosperous! Because you have rejected the Lord, he has rejected you!’”

He said, “I will reject them, I will see what will happen to them; for they are a perverse generation, children who show no loyalty.

It was quite a long time – some twenty years in all – that the ark stayed at Kiriath Jearim. All the people of Israel longed for the Lord.

But Rehoboam rejected their advice and consulted the young advisers who served him, with whom he had grown up.

But the Babylonian army chased after the king. They caught up with him in the plains of Jericho, and his entire army deserted him.

“But if you people ever turn away from me, fail to obey the regulations and rules I instructed you to keep, and decide to serve and worship other gods,

But Rehoboam rejected their advice and consulted the young advisers who served him, with whom he had grown up.

Don’t be like your fathers and brothers who were unfaithful to the Lord God of their ancestors, provoking him to destroy them, as you can see.

adrift among the dead, like corpses lying in the grave, whom you remember no more, and who are cut off from your power.

Daughter Zion is left isolated, like a hut in a vineyard, or a shelter in a cucumber field; she is a besieged city.

At that time men will throw their silver and gold idols, which they made for themselves to worship, into the caves where rodents and bats live,

It will be as when one gathers the grain harvest, and his hand gleans the ear of grain. It will be like one gathering the ears of grain in the Valley of Rephaim.

Yes, your land lies in ruins; it is desolate and devastated. But now you will be too small to hold your residents, and those who devoured you will be far away.

The Lord answered, “This has happened because these people have rejected my laws which I gave them. They have not obeyed me or followed those laws.

For the honor of your name, do not treat Jerusalem with contempt. Do not treat with disdain the place where your glorious throne sits. Be mindful of your covenant with us. Do not break it!

If you do not obey me, then I will do to this temple what I did to Shiloh. And I will make this city an example to be used in curses by people from all the nations on the earth.’”

Leave your towns, you inhabitants of Moab. Go and live in the cliffs. Be like a dove that makes its nest high on the sides of a ravine.

But the Babylonian army chased after the king. They caught up with Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho, and his entire army deserted him.

“Her sister Oholibah watched this, but she became more corrupt in her lust than her sister had been, and her acts of prostitution were more numerous than those of her sister.