"The Temple that I'm building will be great, because the greatness of our God surpasses that of all gods.

"But if you turn away and abandon my statutes and my commands that I have given you, and if you walk away to serve other gods and worship them,

They will answer, "Because they abandoned the LORD God of their ancestors, who brought them from the land of Egypt, adopted other gods, worshipped them, and served them, therefore the LORD has brought all of this disaster on them.'"

"So now you think you'll be able to withstand the LORD's kingdom as controlled by David's descendants, just because you have a large crown and have brought with you the golden calves that Jeroboam made for you as gods.

Later, Amaziah returned from slaughtering the Edomites, but he brought back the gods that had belonged to the men of Seir, set them up as his own gods, worshipped them, and sacrificed offerings to them.

As a result, the Lord became angry with Amaziah and sent a prophet to him, who asked him, "Why did you seek the gods of a people who were unable to deliver their own nation from you?"

But Amaziah refused to listen, because the situation was being orchestrated by God in order to turn them over to the control of their enemies because they had pursued those Edomite gods.

He sacrificed to the gods of Damascus that had defeated him, reasoning, "The gods of the kings of Aram helped them, so I'll sacrifice to them so they will help me!" But those gods brought about his downfall, and the downfall of all of Israel, too.

and established high places in every city of Judah where incense was burned to other gods, thus provoking the LORD God of his ancestors to anger.

Don't you know what my predecessors have done to all the other people in other lands? Were the gods of the people who lived in those lands able to deliver their countries out of my control?

What god, out of all the gods of those nations that my predecessors utterly destroyed, has been able to deliver his people from my control or from the control of my predecessors?

Sennacherib also wrote letters like this that insulted and slandered the LORD God of Israel: "Just as the gods of the nations in other lands haven't delivered their people from my control, so also the god of Hezekiah won't deliver his people from me!"

In doing so, they spoke about the God of Jerusalem as if he were like the gods of the nations of the earth that are made by the hands of human beings.

He also eliminated the foreign gods and idols from the LORD's Temple, along with all of the altars that he had built in Jerusalem and on the mountain where the LORD's Temple was located, and he discarded them outside the city.

Because they abandoned me and have burned incense to other gods, provoking me to become angry at everything they're doing, therefore my wrath is about to be poured out on this place, and it won't be quenched.'"'