The LORD says, "Israel, I wanted to accept you as my child and give you a delightful land, the most beautiful land in all the world. I wanted you to call me father and never again turn away from me.

"How can I give you up, Israel? How can I abandon you? Could I ever destroy you as I did Admah, or treat you as I did Zeboiim? My heart will not let me do it! My love for you is too strong.

"Jerusalem, Jerusalem! You kill the prophets and stone the messengers God has sent you! How many times I wanted to put my arms around all your people, just as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you would not let me!

And so your Temple will be abandoned and empty.

If with all their hearts they will accept the religion of my people and will swear, 'As the LORD lives'---as they once taught my people to swear by Baal---then they will also be a part of my people and will prosper.

and then you will not associate with these peoples left among you or speak the names of their gods or use those names in taking vows or worship those gods or bow down to them.

"Even though you people of Israel are unfaithful to me, may Judah not be guilty of the same thing. Don't worship at Gilgal or Bethaven, or make promises there in the name of the living LORD.

Those who swear by the idols of Samaria, who say, 'By the god of Dan' or 'By the god of Beersheba'---those people will fall and not rise again."

I will destroy anyone who goes up on the roof and worships the sun, the moon, and the stars. I will also destroy those who worship me and swear loyalty to me, but then take oaths in the name of the god Molech.

No other nation has ever changed its gods, even though they were not real. But my people have exchanged me, the God who has brought them honor, for gods that can do nothing for them.

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.

So then, about eating the food offered to idols: we know that an idol stands for something that does not really exist; we know that there is only the one God.

In the past you did not know God, and so you were slaves of beings who are not gods.

People of Israel, listen to what I am saying. Have I been like a desert to you, like a dark and dangerous land? Why, then, do you say that you will do as you please, that you will never come back to me?

"The LORD's people grew rich, but rebellious; they were fat and stuffed with food. They abandoned God their Creator and rejected their mighty savior.

She and her daughters were proud because they had plenty to eat and lived in peace and quiet, but they did not take care of the poor and the underprivileged.

They were proud and stubborn and did the things that I hate, so I destroyed them, as you well know.

But when you entered the good land, you became full and satisfied, and then you grew proud and forgot me.

And now, you rich people, listen to me! Weep and wail over the miseries that are coming upon you!

Your gold and silver are covered with rust, and this rust will be a witness against you and will eat up your flesh like fire. You have piled up riches in these last days.

Your life here on earth has been full of luxury and pleasure. You have made yourselves fat for the day of slaughter.

I wish I had a place to stay in the desert where I could get away from my people. They are all unfaithful, a mob of traitors.

He has seen you do the things he hates. He has seen you go after pagan gods on the hills and in the fields, like a man lusting after his neighbor's wife or like a stallion after a mare. People of Jerusalem, you are doomed! When will you ever be pure?

The land is full of people unfaithful to the LORD; they live wicked lives and misuse their power. Because of the LORD's curse the land mourns and the pastures are dry.

When the people who were taken away as prisoners from Jerusalem to Babylonia want to bring a curse on someone, they will say, 'May the LORD treat you like Zedekiah and Ahab, whom the king of Babylonia roasted alive!'

This will be their fate because they are guilty of terrible sins---they have committed adultery and have told lies in the LORD's name. This was against the LORD's will; he knows what they have done, and he is a witness against them. The LORD has spoken."

If a man commits adultery with the wife of an Israelite, both he and the woman shall be put to death.

You become the friend of every thief you see, and you associate with adulterers.

Some commit adultery, and others seduce their daughters-in-law or their half sisters.

They make promises and break them; they lie, murder, steal, and commit adultery. Crimes increase, and there is one murder after another.

At sacred places on the mountaintops they offer sacrifices, and on the hills they burn incense under tall, spreading trees, because the shade is so pleasant! "As a result, your daughters serve as prostitutes, and your daughters-in-law commit adultery.

Yet I will not punish them for this, because you yourselves go off with temple prostitutes, and together with them you offer pagan sacrifices. As the proverb says, 'A people without sense will be ruined.'

They are all treacherous and disloyal. Their hatred smolders like the fire in an oven, which is not stirred by the baker until the dough is ready to bake.

The LORD Almighty says, "I will appear among you to judge, and I will testify at once against those who practice magic, against adulterers, against those who give false testimony, those who cheat employees out of their wages, and those who take advantage of widows, orphans, and foreigners---against all who do not respect me.

Surely you know that the wicked will not possess God's Kingdom. Do not fool yourselves; people who are immoral or who worship idols or are adulterers or homosexual perverts

Marriage is to be honored by all, and husbands and wives must be faithful to each other. God will judge those who are immoral and those who commit adultery.

Unfaithful people! Don't you know that to be the world's friend means to be God's enemy? If you want to be the world's friend, you make yourself God's enemy.

When the Israelites were camped at Acacia Valley, the men began to have sexual intercourse with the Moabite women who were there.

Baal of Peor. So the LORD was angry with them