16. because they despised my judgments, and they did not walk in my statutes, and my Sabbaths they profaned, for their heart was going after their idols.
17. But my eye took pity on them by not destroying them, and I did not completely destroy them in the desert.
18. “And I said to their children in the desert, ‘You must not go in the statutes of your parents; you must not keep their regulations, and you must not make yourself unclean with their idols.
19. I, Yahweh, am your God, so go in my statutes and keep my regulations and do them.
20. And treat my Sabbaths as holy, and they will be a sign between me and between you that you may know that I, Yahweh, am your God.’
21. But the children rebelled against me; they did not walk in my statutes, and they did not observe my regulations, which if a person does them, then he will live by them. My Sabbaths they desecrated, and I decided to pour out my rage on them, to finish my anger against them in the desert.
22. But I withheld my hand, and I acted for the sake of my name not to be profaned before the eyes of the nations before whom I had brought them out before their eyes.
23. What is more, I swore to them in the desert to scatter them among the nations and to disperse them in the lands,
24. because they did not do my regulations, and my statutes they despised, and my Sabbaths they profaned, and their eyes were after the idols of their ancestors.
25. And in turn I gave to them rules that were not good and regulations by which they will not live.
26. And I defiled them through their gifts in sacrificing all of the first offspring of the womb, in order that I will cause them to be stunned, so that they will know that I am Yahweh.
27. “Therefore speak to the house of Israel, son of man, and you must say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord Yahweh: “Again in this your ancestors blasphemed me at their display of infidelity toward me.” ’