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.
27. Therefore, son of man, speak to the house of Israel, and say to them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Yet in this your fathers have blasphemed me, in that they have committed a trespass against me.
28. For when I had brought them into the land, for which I lifted up my hand to give it to them, then they saw every high hill, and all the thick trees, and they offered there their sacrifices, and there they presented the provocation of their offering: there also they made their sweet savor, and poured out there their drink-offerings.