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.” ’
28. And I brought them to the land that I swore to give to them, and they saw every high hill and every leafy tree, and they offered their sacrifices, and they presented there the provocation of their offering, and they gave there their fragrant incense offering, and they poured out their libations there.
29. And I said to them, ‘What is the high place to which you are going?’ And it is called Bamah until this day.
30. Therefore thus say to the house of Israel, ‘Thus says the Lord Yahweh: “In the way of your ancestors will you defile yourself, and after their vile idols will you prostitute yourselves?
31. And when you lift up your gifts, sacrificing your children through the fire, you are defiling yourself through all of your idols until today, and will I let myself be consulted by you, house of Israel?” ’ As I live,” declares the Lord Yahweh, “I will not let myself be consulted by you!
32. And what you are planning, surely it will not be—that you are saying, ‘Let us be like the nations, like the clans of the lands, serving wood and stone!’