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

They angered him with their heathen places of worship, and with their idols they made him furious.

Don't go after false gods; they cannot help you or save you, for they are not real.

Because of their idolatry and because they led Israel into sin, Baasha and his son Elah had aroused the anger of the LORD, the God of Israel.

Like Jeroboam before him, he aroused the anger of the LORD, the God of Israel, by his sins and by leading the people into sin and idolatry.

You hate those who worship false gods, but I trust in you.

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?"

All of them are stupid and foolish. What can they learn from wooden idols?

None of the idols of the nations can send rain; the sky by itself cannot make showers fall. We have put our hope in you, O LORD our God, because you are the one who does these things.

Those who worship worthless idols have abandoned their loyalty to you.

And when I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came down on them just as on us at the beginning.

The people of Israel will become like the sand of the sea, more than can be counted or measured. Now God says to them, "You are not my people," but the day is coming when he will say to them, "You are the children of the living God!"

This is what he says in the book of Hosea: "The people who were not mine I will call 'My People.' The nation that I did not love I will call 'My Beloved.'

Again I ask: Did the people of Israel not understand? Moses himself is the first one to answer: "I will use a so-called nation to make my people jealous; and by means of a nation of fools I will make my people angry."

I ask, then: When the Jews stumbled, did they fall to their ruin? By no means! Because they sinned, salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make the Jews jealous of them.

I am speaking now to you Gentiles: As long as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I will take pride in my work.

But you are the chosen race, the King's priests, the holy nation, God's own people, chosen to proclaim the wonderful acts of God, who called you out of darkness into his own marvelous light.

At one time you were not God's people, but now you are his people; at one time you did not know God's mercy, but now you have received his mercy.