The Babylonian Exile

Because they cast off my judgments, and walked not in my statutes, and violated my sabbaths: for their heart went after idols.

Yet my eye spared them, so that I destroyed them not: neither did I consume them in the desert.

And I said to their children in the wilderness: Walk not in the statutes of your fathers, and observe not their judgments, nor be ye defiled with their idols:

I am the Lord your God: walk ye in my statutes, and observe my judgments, and do them.

And sanctify my sabbaths, that they may be a sign between me and you: and that you may know that I am the Lord your God.

But their children provoked me, they walked not in my commandments, nor observed my judgments to do them: which if a man do, he shall live in them: and they violated my sabbaths: and I threatened to pour out my indignation upon them, and to accomplish my wrath in them in the desert.

But I turned away my hand, and wrought for my name's sake, that it might not be violated before the nations, out of which I brought them forth in their sight.

Again I lifted up my hand upon them in the wilderness, to disperse them among the nations, and scatter them through the countries:

Because they had not done my judgments, and had cast off my statutes, and had violated my sabbaths, and their eyes had been after the idols of their fathers.

Therefore I also gave them statutes that were not good, and judgments, in which they shall not live.

And I polluted them in their own gifts, when they offered all that opened the womb, for their offences: and they shall know that I am the Lord.

Wherefore speak to the house of Israel, O son of man, and say to them: Thus saith the Lord God: Moreover in this also your fathers blaspheme me, when they had despised and contemned me;

And I had brought them into the land, for which I lifted up my hand to give it them: they saw every high hill, and every shady tree, and there they sacrificed their victims: and there they presented the provocation of their offerings, and there they set their sweet odours, and poured forth their libations.

And I said to them: What meaneth the high place to which you go? and the name thereof was called High-place even to this day.

Wherefore say to the house of Israel: Thus saith the Lord God: Verily, you are defiled in the way of your fathers, and you commit fornication with their abominations.

And you defile yourselves with all your idols unto this day, in the offering of your gifts, when you make your children pass through the fire: and shall I answer you, O house of Israel? As I live, saith the Lord God, I will not answer you.

Neither shall the thought of your mind come to pass, by which you say: We will be as the Gentiles, and as the families of the earth, to worship stocks and stones.

As I live, saith the Lord God, I will reign over you with a strong hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out.

And I will bring you out from the people, and I will gather you out of the countries, in which you are scattered, I will reign over you with a strong hand and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out.

And I will bring you into the wilderness of people, and there will I plead with you face to face.

As I pleaded against your fathers in the desert of the land of Egypt; even so will I judge you, saith the Lord God.

And I will make you subject to my sceptre, and will bring you into the bands of the covenant.

And I will pick out from among you the transgressors, and the wicked, and will bring them out of the land where they sojourn, and they shall not enter into the land of Israel: and you shall know that I am the Lord.

And as for you, O house of Israel: thus saith the Lord God: Walk ye every one after your idols, and serve them. But if in this also you hear me not, but defile my holy name any more with your gifts, and with your idols;

In my holy mountain, in the high mountain of Israel, saith the Lord God, there shall all the house of Israel serve me; all of them I say, in the land in which they shall please me, and there will I require your firstfruits, and the chief of your tithes with all your sanctifications.