17. Nevertheless my eye spared them, and I didn’t destroy them, neither did I make a full end of them in the wilderness.
18. I said to their children in the wilderness, ‘Don’t walk in the statutes of your fathers, neither observe their ordinances, nor defile yourselves with their idols.
19. I am Yahweh your God. Walk in my statutes, and keep my ordinances, and do them;
20. and make my Sabbaths holy; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that you may know that I am Yahweh your God. ’
21. “‘“But the children rebelled against me. They didn’t walk in my statutes, neither kept my ordinances to do them, which if a man do, he shall live in them. They profaned my Sabbaths. Then I said I would pour out my wrath on them, to accomplish my anger against them in the wilderness.
22. Nevertheless I withdrew my hand, and worked for my name’s sake, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations, in whose sight I brought them out.
23. Moreover I swore to them in the wilderness, that I would scatter them among the nations, and disperse them through the countries;
24. because they had not executed my ordinances, but had rejected my statutes, and had profaned my Sabbaths, and their eyes were after their fathers’ idols.
25. Moreover also I gave them statutes that were not good, and ordinances in which they should not live;
26. and I polluted them in their own gifts, in that they caused all that opens the womb to pass through the fire, that I might make them desolate, to the end that they might know that I am Yahweh.”’
27. “Therefore, son of man, speak to the house of Israel, and tell them, ‘Thus says the Lord Yahweh: “In this moreover your fathers have blasphemed me, in that they have committed a trespass against me.
28. For when I had brought them into the land, which I swore to give to them, then they saw every high hill, and every thick tree, and they offered there their sacrifices, and there they presented the provocation of their offering; there also they made their pleasant aroma, and they poured out there their drink offerings.
29. Then I said to them, ‘What does the high place where you go mean?’ So its name is called Bamah to this day. ”’
30. “Therefore tell the house of Israel, ‘Thus says the Lord Yahweh: “Do you pollute yourselves in the way of your fathers? Do you play the prostitute after their abominations?
31. When you offer your gifts, when you make your sons to pass through the fire, do you pollute yourselves with all your idols to this day? Shall I be inquired of by you, house of Israel? As I live, says the Lord Yahweh, I will not be inquired of by you!
32. “‘“That which comes into your mind shall not be at all, in that you say, ‘We will be as the nations, as the families of the countries, to serve wood and stone.’
33. As I live, says the Lord Yahweh, surely with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with wrath poured out, I will be king over you.