Jeremiah 2:20

Consequences Of Apostasy

¹⁹
“Your own wickedness will discipline you,
And your desertion of the faith will punish you.
Know therefore that it is an evil and bitter thing
For you to abandon (reject) the Lord your God,
And for you to be indifferent to Me and dismiss the [reverent] fear of Me,” says the Lord God of hosts. ²⁰ 
“For long ago you broke your yoke [in deliberate disobedience]
And tore off your bonds [of the law that I gave you];
You said, ‘I will not serve and obey You!’
For on every high hill
And under every green tree
You have lain down [in idolatrous worship] like a [compliant] prostitute.
²¹
“Yet I had planted you [O house of Israel as] a choice vine,
A completely faithful seed.
How then have you turned against Me
Into degenerate shoots of a foreign and wild vine [alien to Me]?

Every Green Tree

Every High Hill

Other Gods

Under Every Green Tree

Be Subject To

Serve Sin

No

Deuteronomy 12:2

You shall utterly destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess serve their gods, on the high mountains and the hills and under every green [leafy] tree.

Leviticus 26:13

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt so that you would not be their slaves; and I broke the bars of your yoke and made you walk upright [with heads held high as free men].

Isaiah 1:21

How the faithful city has become a prostitute [idolatrous, despicable],
She who was full of justice!
Right standing with God once lodged in her,
But now murderers.

Jeremiah 17:2

As they remember their children,
So they remember [in detail] their [pagan] altars and their Asherim
Beside green trees on the high hills.

Jeremiah 30:8

‘It shall come about on that day,’ says the Lord of hosts, ‘that I will break the yoke off your neck and I will tear off your bonds and force apart your shackles; and strangers will no longer make slaves of the people [of Israel].

Exodus 3:8

So I have come down to rescue them from the hand (power) of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a land [that is] good and spacious, to a land flowing with milk and honey [a land of plenty]—to the place of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite.

Exodus 19:8

All the people answered together and said, “We will do everything that the Lord has spoken.” And Moses reported the words of the people to the Lord.

Exodus 24:3

Then Moses came and told the people everything that the Lord had said and all the ordinances. And all the people answered with one voice, “Everything the Lord has said we will do.”

Exodus 34:14-16

—for you shall not worship any other god; for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous (impassioned) God [demanding what is rightfully and uniquely His]—

Deuteronomy 4:20

But the Lord has taken you and brought you out of the iron [smelting] furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people for His own possession, as [you are] this day.

Deuteronomy 4:34

Or has any [man-made] god ever tried to go and take for himself a nation from within another nation by trials, by signs and wonders and by war and by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm and by great terrors, as the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your [very] eyes?

Deuteronomy 5:27

You, Moses, go near and listen to everything that the Lord our God says; then speak to us everything that the Lord our God speaks to you, and we will listen and do it.’

Deuteronomy 15:15

And you shall remember and thoughtfully consider that you were [once] a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you; therefore, I am commanding you these things today.

Deuteronomy 26:17

Today you have [openly] declared the Lord to be your God, and that you will walk [that is, live each and every day] in His ways and keep His statutes, His commandments, and His judgments (precepts), and listen to His voice.

Joshua 1:16

They answered Joshua, saying, “All that you have commanded us we will do, and wherever you send us we will go.

Joshua 24:24

The people said to Joshua, “We will serve the Lord our God and we will listen to and obey His voice.”

Joshua 24:26

And Joshua wrote these words in the Book of the Law of God. Then he took a large stone and set it up there under the oak that was in [the courtyard of] the sanctuary of the Lord.

1 Samuel 12:10

They cried out to the Lord, saying, ‘We have sinned because we have abandoned (rejected) the Lord and have served the Baals and the Ashtaroth; but now rescue us from the hands of our enemies, and we will serve You.’

1 Kings 12:32

Jeroboam held a feast on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, like the feast which is kept in Judah, and he went up to the altar; he did this in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves which he had made. And he stationed in Bethel the priests of the high places which he had made.

Psalm 78:58

For they provoked Him to [righteous] anger with their high places [devoted to idol worship]
And moved Him to jealousy with their carved images [by denying Him the love, worship, and obedience that is rightfully and uniquely His].

Isaiah 9:4

For You will break the yoke of Israel’s burden and the staff (goad) on their shoulders,
The rod of their oppressor, as at the battle of Midian.

Isaiah 10:27

So it will be in that day, that the burden of the Assyrian will be removed from your shoulders and his yoke from your neck. The yoke will be broken because of the fat.

Isaiah 14:25

to break the Assyrian in My land, and on My mountains I will trample him underfoot. Then the Assyrian’s yoke will be removed from them (the people of Judah) and his burden removed from their shoulder.

Isaiah 57:5-7

Who inflame yourselves [with lust in pagan rites] among the oaks (terebinth trees),
Under every green and leafy tree,
Who slaughter the children [in sacrifice] in the ravines
Under the clefts of the rocks?

Jeremiah 3:1-2

That is to say, “If a man divorces his wife
And she goes [away] from him
And becomes another man’s [wife],
Will he return to her again? [Of course not!]
Will not that land [where such a thing happened] be completely desecrated?
But you [rebelled against Me and you] are a prostitute with many lovers;
Yet you turn to Me.” says the Lord.

Jeremiah 3:6-8

Moreover, the Lord said to me in the days of Josiah the king [of Judah], “Have you seen what that faithless Israel has done—how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and there she was a prostitute?

Ezekiel 16:15-16

“But you trusted in and relied on your beauty and prostituted yourself [in idolatry and its debauched rituals] because of your fame, and you poured out your immoralities on every [willing] passer-by and your beauty was his [as you worshiped the idols of the Gentile nations].

Ezekiel 16:24-25

that you built yourself an altar for prostitution and made yourself a high place [for ritual prostitution] in every square [of Jerusalem].

Ezekiel 16:28

You prostituted yourself with the Assyrians because you were not satisfied; you prostituted yourself with them and still were not satisfied.

Ezekiel 16:31

When you built your shrine altar for prostitution at the beginning of every street and made your high place in every public square, you were not like a prostitute because you refused payment.

Ezekiel 16:41

They will burn down your houses with fire and execute judgments on you in the sight of many women (Gentile nations). Then I will make you cease your prostitution, and you will no longer hire your lovers.

Ezekiel 20:28

For when I had brought them into the land which I swore to give to them, they saw every high hill and every dark and leafy tree [as a place for idol worship], and there they offered their sacrifices and there they presented their offering that provoked My anger; there also they made their sweet-smelling aroma and there poured out their drink offerings.

Ezekiel 23:5

“Oholah played the prostitute while she was Mine; and she adored and lusted after her lovers (allies), the Assyrians, her neighbors,

Hosea 2:5

“For their mother has played the prostitute;
She who conceived them has acted shamefully,
For she said, ‘I will pursue my lovers
Who give me my food and my water,
My wool and my flax, my oil and my [refreshing] drinks.’

Hosea 3:3

And I said to her, “You shall stay with me for many days. You shall not play the prostitute nor shall you have a man; so I will also be toward you [until you have proved your faithfulness].”

Nahum 1:13

“Now, I will break his yoke [of taxation] off you,
And I will tear off your shackles.”