The LORD will abandon Israel because Jeroboam sinned and led the people of Israel into sin."

After thinking it over, he made two bull-calves of gold and said to his people, "You have been going long enough to Jerusalem to worship. People of Israel, here are your gods who brought you out of Egypt!"

King Jeroboam of Israel still did not turn from his evil ways but continued to choose priests from ordinary families to serve at the altars he had built. He ordained as priest anyone who wanted to be one.

This sin on his part brought about the ruin and total destruction of his dynasty.

Like King Jeroboam before him, he sinned against the LORD and led Israel into sin.

It was not enough for him to sin like King Jeroboam; he went further and married Jezebel, the daughter of King Ethbaal of Sidon, and worshiped Baal.

Their idolatry made the LORD jealous; the evil they did made him angry.

They sacrificed to gods that are not real, new gods their ancestors had never known, gods that Israel had never obeyed.

With their idols they have made me angry, jealous with their so-called gods, gods that are really not gods. So I will use a so-called nation to make them angry; I will make them jealous with a nation of fools.

Then there was war in the land when the Israelites chose new gods. Of the forty thousand men in Israel, did anyone carry shield or spear?

Jeroboam appointed priests of his own to serve at the pagan places of worship and to worship demons and the idols he made in the form of bull-calves.

They made a gold bull-calf at Sinai and worshiped that idol;

they exchanged the glory of God for the image of an animal that eats grass.

Their gods are made of silver and gold, formed by human hands.

They have ears, but cannot hear, and noses, but cannot smell.

May all who made them and who trust in them become like the idols they have made.

All those who make idols are worthless, and the gods they prize so highly are useless. Those who worship these gods are blind and ignorant---and they will be disgraced.

Everyone who worships it will be humiliated. The people who make idols are human beings and nothing more. Let them come and stand trial---they will be terrified and will suffer disgrace.

The carpenter measures the wood. He outlines a figure with chalk, carves it out with his tools, and makes it in the form of a man, a handsome human figure, to be placed in his house.

A person uses part of a tree for fuel and part of it for making an idol. With one part he builds a fire to warm himself and bake bread; with the other part he makes a god and worships it.

The rest of the wood he makes into an idol, and then he bows down and worships it. He prays to it and says, "You are my god---save me!"

The maker of idols hasn't the wit or the sense to say, "Some of the wood I burned up. I baked some bread on the coals, and I roasted meat and ate it. And the rest of the wood I made into an idol. Here I am bowing down to a block of wood!"

At the sight of this, people feel stupid and senseless; those who make idols are disillusioned, because the gods they make are false and lifeless.

The God of Jacob is not like them; he is the one who made everything, and he has chosen Israel to be his very own people. The LORD Almighty is his name.

The people of Judah sinned against the LORD and did more to arouse his anger against them than all their ancestors had done.

Even at Mount Sinai you made the LORD angry---angry enough to destroy you.

Then the LORD gave me the two stone tablets on which he had written with his own hand what he had said to you from the fire on the day that you were gathered there at the mountain.

"Then the LORD said to me, 'Go down the mountain at once, because your people, whom you led out of Egypt, have become corrupt and have done evil. They have already turned away from what I commanded them to do, and they have made an idol for themselves.'

Don't try to stop me. I intend to destroy them so that no one will remember them any longer. Then I will make you the father of a nation larger and more powerful than they are.'

I saw that you had already disobeyed the command that the LORD your God had given you, and that you had sinned against him by making yourselves a metal idol in the form of a bull-calf.

He rebuilt the pagan places of worship that his father Hezekiah had destroyed; he built altars for the worship of Baal and made an image of the goddess Asherah, as King Ahab of Israel had done. Manasseh also worshiped the stars.

But the LORD's fierce anger had been aroused against Judah by what King Manasseh had done, and even now it did not die down.

He sacrificed his sons in Hinnom Valley as burnt offerings. He practiced divination and magic and consulted fortunetellers and mediums. He sinned greatly against the LORD and stirred up his anger.

How often they rebelled against him in the desert; how many times they made him sad!

But they rebelled against Almighty God and put him to the test. They did not obey his commandments,

They stirred up the LORD's anger by their actions, and a terrible disease broke out among them.

You steal, murder, commit adultery, tell lies under oath, offer sacrifices to Baal, and worship gods that you had not known before.

You do these things I hate, and then you come and stand in my presence, in my own Temple, and say, 'We are safe!'

He reached out what seemed to be a hand and grabbed me by the hair. Then in this vision God's spirit lifted me high in the air and took me to Jerusalem. He took me to the inner entrance of the north gate of the Temple, where there was an idol that was an outrage to God.

The LORD said to me, "Mortal man, do you see that? These people of Judah are not satisfied with merely doing all the disgusting things you have seen here and with spreading violence throughout the country. No, they must come and do them right here in the Temple and make me even more angry. Look how they insult me in the most offensive way possible!

Or do we want to make the Lord jealous? Do we think that we are stronger than he?

"But your people rebelled and disobeyed you; they turned their backs on your Law. They killed the prophets who warned them, who told them to turn back to you. They insulted you time after time,

You refuse to let me correct you; you reject my commands.

Now this is what the Sovereign LORD is saying: "Because you forgot me and turned your back on me, you will suffer for your lust and your prostitution."