They stopped worshiping the LORD, the God of their ancestors, the God who had brought them out of Egypt, and they began to worship other gods, the gods of the peoples around them. They bowed down to them and made the LORD angry.

They stopped worshiping the LORD and served the Baals and the Astartes.

I will punish my people because they have sinned; they have abandoned me, have offered sacrifices to other gods, and have made idols and worshiped them.

All your enemies mock you and glare at you with hate. They curl their lips and sneer, "We have destroyed it! This is the day we have waited for!"

The LORD has finally done what he threatened to do: He has destroyed us without mercy, as he warned us long ago. He gave our enemies victory, gave them joy at our downfall.

But it happened, because her prophets sinned and her priests were guilty of causing the death of innocent people.

"Get away!" people shouted. "You're defiled! Don't touch me!" So they wandered from nation to nation, welcomed by no one.

then you will know that there was good reason for everything I did." The Sovereign LORD has spoken.

"Mortal man," he said, "when the Israelites were living in their land, they defiled it by the way they lived and acted. I regarded their behavior as being as ritually unclean as a woman is during her monthly period.

I condemned them for the way they lived and acted, and I scattered them through foreign countries.

So the LORD brought the king of Babylonia to attack them. The king killed the young men of Judah even in the Temple. He had no mercy on anyone, young or old, man or woman, sick or healthy. God handed them all over to him.

You did what you said you would do to us and our rulers. You punished Jerusalem more severely than any other city on earth,