I will destroy your places of worship on the hills, tear down your incense altars, and throw your dead bodies on your fallen idols. In utter disgust

you must drive out all the inhabitants of the land. Destroy all their stone and metal idols and all their places of worship.

In the land that you are taking, destroy all the places where the people worship their gods on high mountains, on hills, and under green trees.

"Do not worship the LORD your God in the way that these people worship their gods.

I brought them to the land I had promised to give them. When they saw the high hills and green trees, they offered sacrifices at all of them. They made me angry by the sacrifices they burned and by the wine they brought as offerings.

I asked them: What are these high places where you go? So they have been called 'High Places' ever since.

LORD, will you be angry with us forever? Will your anger continue to burn like fire?

"Do not worship any other god, because I, the LORD, tolerate no rivals.

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.

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.

Then the LORD would become furious with Israel and say, "This nation has broken the covenant that I commanded their ancestors to keep. Because they have not obeyed me,

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.

God said to me, "Mortal man, look toward the north." I looked, and there near the altar by the entrance of the gateway I saw the idol that was an outrage to God.

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

Everyone who worships idols is put to shame; all the gods bow down before the LORD.

"Do not make for yourselves images of anything in heaven or on earth or in the water under the earth.

Do not bow down to any idol or worship it, because I am the LORD your God and I tolerate no rivals. I bring punishment on those who hate me and on their descendants down to the third and fourth generation.

that you do not sin by making for yourselves an idol in any form at all---whether man or woman,

reptile or fish.

But you are the people he rescued from Egypt, that blazing furnace. He brought you out to make you his own people, as you are today.

I will die in this land and never cross the river, but you are about to go across and occupy that fertile land.

because the LORD your God is like a flaming fire; he tolerates no rivals.

" 'God's curse on anyone who makes an idol of stone, wood, or metal and secretly worships it; the LORD hates idolatry.' "And all the people will answer, 'Amen!'

Then the people of Israel sinned against the LORD and began to serve the Baals.

But the Israelites paid no attention to their leaders. Israel was unfaithful to the LORD and worshiped other gods. Their fathers had obeyed the LORD's commands, but this new generation soon stopped doing so.

Once again the Israelites sinned against the LORD by worshiping the Baals and the Astartes, as well as the gods of Syria, of Sidon, of Moab, of Ammon, and of Philistia. They abandoned the LORD and stopped worshiping him.

On the mountain east of Jerusalem he built a place to worship Chemosh, the disgusting god of Moab, and a place to worship Molech, the disgusting god of Ammon.

(SEE 11:9)

Jeroboam also built places of worship on hilltops, and he chose priests from families who were not of the tribe of Levi.

Listen! Throughout the land I hear my people crying out, "Is the LORD no longer in Zion? Is Zion's king no longer there?" The LORD, their king, replies, "Why have you made me angry by worshiping your idols and by bowing down to your useless foreign gods?"

They still keep on sinning by making metal images to worship---idols of silver, designed by human minds, made by human hands. And then they say, "Offer sacrifices to them!" How can anyone kiss those idols---idols in the shape of bulls!