You have committed all these sins, and even though I spoke to you over and over again, you refused to listen. You would not answer when I called you.

From the day that your ancestors came out of Egypt until this very day I have kept on sending to you my servants, the prophets.

"For twenty-three years, from the thirteenth year that Josiah son of Amon was king of Judah until this very day, the LORD has spoken to me, and I have never failed to tell you what he said. But you have paid no attention.

You would not listen or pay attention, even though the LORD has continued to send you his servants the prophets.

and by paying attention to the words of my servants, the prophets, whom I have kept on sending to you. You have never obeyed what they said.

This will happen to them because they did not obey the message that I kept on sending to them through my servants the prophets. They refused to listen.

They turned their backs on me; and though I kept on teaching them, they would not listen and learn.

So now, I, the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, will bring on you people of Judah and of Jerusalem all the destruction that I promised. I will do this because you would not listen when I spoke to you, and you would not answer when I called you."

The LORD, the God of their ancestors, had continued to send prophets to warn his people, because he wanted to spare them and the Temple.

This is what the LORD said through the earlier prophets at the time when Jerusalem was prosperous and filled with people and when there were many people living not only in the towns around the city but also in the southern region and in the western foothills.

I will make them pay double for their sin and wickedness, because they have defiled my land with idols that are as lifeless as corpses, and have filled it with their false gods."

So I went in and looked. The walls were covered with drawings of snakes and other unclean animals, and of the other things which the Israelites were worshiping.

This is what the Sovereign LORD says: "You stripped off your clothes, and like a prostitute, you gave yourself to your lovers and to all your disgusting idols, and you killed your children as sacrifices to idols.

Were you satisfied to follow in their footsteps and copy their disgusting actions? No, in only a little while you were acting worse than they were in everything you did.

You have spent enough time in the past doing what the heathen like to do. Your lives were spent in indecency, lust, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and the disgusting worship of idols.

The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and covered with gold ornaments, precious stones, and pearls. In her hand she held a gold cup full of obscene and filthy things, the result of her immorality.

On her forehead was written a name that has a secret meaning: "Great Babylon, the mother of all prostitutes and perverts in the world."