9. Even worse, the Israelites tried to hide their sins from the Lord their God. They built their own local shrines everywhere in Israel—from small towns to large, walled cities.
10. They also built stone images of foreign gods and set up sacred poles for the worship of Asherah on every hill and under every shady tree.
11. They offered sacrifices at the shrines, just as the foreign nations had done before the Lord forced them out of Israel. They did sinful things that made the Lord very angry.
12. Even though the Lord had commanded the Israelites not to worship idols, they did it anyway.
13. So the Lord made sure that every prophet warned Israel and Judah with these words: “I, the Lord, command you to stop doing sinful things and start obeying my laws and teachings! I gave them to your ancestors, and I told my servants the prophets to repeat them to you.”
14. But the Israelites would not listen; they were as stubborn as their ancestors who had refused to worship the Lord their God.
15. They ignored the Lord's warnings and commands, and they rejected the solemn agreement he had made with their ancestors. They worshipped worthless idols and became worthless themselves. The Lord had told the Israelites not to do the things that the foreign nations around them were doing, but Israel became just like them.