23. But this thing I did command them: Listen to and obey My voice, and I will be your God and you will be My people; and walk in the whole way that I command you, that it may be well with you.
24. But they would not listen to and obey Me or bend their ear [to Me], but followed the counsels and the stubborn promptings of their own evil hearts and minds, and they turned their backs and went in reverse instead of forward.
25. Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have persistently sent to you all My servants the prophets, sending them daily, early and late.
26. Yet the people would not listen to and obey Me or bend their ears [to Me], but stiffened their necks and behaved worse than their fathers.
27. Speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to and obey you; also call to them, but they will not answer you.
28. Yet you shall say to them, This is the nation that did not obey the voice of the Lord their God or receive instruction and correction and warning; truth and faithfulness have perished and have completely vanished from their mouths.
29. Cut off your hair [your crown, O Jerusalem] and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on the bare heights, for the Lord has rejected and forsaken the generation of His wrath.
30. For the children of Judah have done evil in My sight, says the Lord; they have set their abominations (extremely disgusting and shamefully vile things) in the house which is called by My Name to defile it.
31. And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of Ben-hinnom [son of Hinnom], to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire [in honor of Molech, the fire god]–which I did not command, nor did it come into My mind or heart. [Lev. 18:21; Josh. 15:8; II Kings 16:2-3; 21:1, 6; Isa. 30:33.]