16. Because they despised my judgments, and walked not in my statutes, but profaned my sabbaths: for their heart went after their idols.
17. Nevertheless my eye spared them from destroying them, neither did I make an end of them in the wilderness.
18. But I said to their children in the wilderness, Walk ye not in the statutes of your fathers, neither observe their judgments, nor defile yourselves with their idols:
19. I am the LORD your God; walk in my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them;
20. And hallow my sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the LORD your God.
21. Notwithstanding the children rebelled against me: they walked not in my statutes, neither kept my judgments to do them, which if a man doeth, he shall even live in them: they profaned my sabbaths: then I said, I would pour out my fury upon them, to accomplish my anger against them in the wilderness.
22. Nevertheless I withdrew my hand, and wrought for my name's sake, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the heathen, in whose sight I brought them forth.
23. I lifted up my hand to them also in the wilderness, that I would scatter them among the heathen, and disperse them through the countries;
24. Because they had not executed my judgments, but had despised my statutes, and had profaned my sabbaths, and their eyes were after their fathers' idols.
25. Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments by which they should not live;
26. And I polluted them in their own gifts, in that they caused to pass through the fire all the first-born, that I might make them desolate, to the end that they might know that I am the LORD.