Bible Verses About Backsliders

They sacrificed to demons, non-gods, gods that they had never known, new gods that had come up lately, which your ancestors had not feared.

You ignored the Rock who fathered you, you forgot God, who gave you birth.

"ADONAI saw and was filled with scorn at his sons' and daughters' provocation.

He said, 'I will hide my face from them and see what will become of them; for they are a perverse generation, untrustworthy children.

They aroused my jealousy with a non-god and provoked me with their vanities; I will arouse their jealousy with a non-people and provoke them with a vile nation.

"'For my anger has been fired up. It burns to the depths of Sh'ol, devouring the earth and its crops, kindling the very roots of the hills.

I will heap disasters on them and use up all my arrows against them.

"'Fatigued by hunger, they will be consumed by fever and bitter defeat; I will send them the fangs of wild beasts, and the poison of reptiles crawling in the dust.

Outside, the sword makes parents childless; inside, there is panic, as young men and girls alike are slain, sucklings and graybeards together.

"'I considered putting an end to them, erasing their memory from the human race;

but I feared the insolence of their enemy, feared that their foes would mistakenly think, "We ourselves accomplished this; ADONAI had nothing to do with it."

"'They are a nation without common sense, utterly lacking in discernment.

If they were wise they could figure it out and understand their destiny.

After all, how can one chase a thousand and two put ten thousand to rout, unless their Rock sells them to their enemies, unless ADONAI hands them over?

If you abandon ADONAI and serve foreign gods, he will turn, doing you harm and destroying you after he has done you good."

But the people said to Y'hoshua, "No, but we will serve ADONAI."

Y'hoshua said to the people, "You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen ADONAI, to serve him." They answered, "We are witnesses."

"Now," Y'hoshua urged, "put away the foreign gods you have among you, and turn your hearts to ADONAI, the God of Isra'el."

The people answered Y'hoshua, "We will serve ADONAI our God; we will pay attention to what he says."

So Y'hoshua made a covenant with the people that day, laying down for them laws and rulings there in Sh'khem.

Y'hoshua wrote these words in the book of the Torah of God. Then he took a big stone and set it up there under the oak next to the sanctuary of ADONAI.

Y'hoshua said to all the people, "See, this stone will be a witness against us; because it has heard all the words of ADONAI which he said to us; therefore it will be a witness against you, in case you deny your God."

But if you turn away from following me, you or your children, and do not observe my mitzvot and regulations which I have set before you, and go and serve other gods, worshipping them;

then I will cut off Isra'el from the land I have given them. This house, which I consecrated for my name, I will eject from my sight; and Isra'el will become an example to avoid and an object of scorn among all peoples.

This house, now so exalted - everyone passing by will gasp in shock at the sight of it and will ask, 'Why has ADONAI done this to this land and to this house?'