He said to me, “Go in and see the evil abominations they are practicing here.”

(The cherubim were standing on the south side of the temple when the man went in, and a cloud filled the inner court.)

“When they return to it, they will remove from it all its detestable things and all its abominations.

Then the cherubim spread their wings with their wheels alongside them while the glory of the God of Israel hovered above them.

So I told the exiles everything the Lord had shown me.

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 make the land desolate because they have acted unfaithfully, declares the sovereign Lord.”

You took your embroidered clothing and used it to cover them; you offered my olive oil and my incense to them.

You engaged in prostitution with the Egyptians, your sexually aroused neighbors, multiplying your promiscuity and provoking me to anger.

Then you multiplied your promiscuity to the land of merchants, Babylonia, but you were not satisfied there either.

Yet I will remember the covenant I made with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish a lasting covenant with you.

I will establish my covenant with you, and then you will know that I am the Lord.

He plucked off its topmost shoot; he brought it to a land of merchants and planted it in a city of traders.

so it would be a lowly kingdom which could not rise on its own but must keep its treaty with him in order to stand.

When a wicked person turns from the wickedness he has committed and does what is just and right, he will preserve his life.

“Are you willing to pronounce judgment? Are you willing to pronounce judgment, son of man? Then confront them with the abominable practices of their fathers,

This is how you assessed the obscene conduct of your youth, when the Egyptians fondled your nipples and squeezed your young breasts.

Moreover, they have done this to me: In the very same day they desecrated my sanctuary and profaned my Sabbaths.

To arouse anger, to take vengeance, I have placed her blood on an exposed rock so that it cannot be covered up.

“‘Therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says: Because you think you are godlike,