and they have built the high places of Baal, to burn their children in the fire, burnt offerings to Baal, which I commanded not, and I ordered not, and it did not come to my {mind}.

For the number of your gods is as the number of your towns, O Judah; and for every street in Jerusalem you have put up altars to the Baal for burning perfumes to the Baal.

The priests did not say, 'Where [is] Yahweh?' and those who handle the law did not know me, and the shepherds have {rebelled against me}, and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and they went after [things which] do not profit.

Will you steal? Will you murder? And will you commit adultery? And will you swear {falsely}? And will you make a smoke offering to the Baal? And will you go after other gods whom you have not known?

And Yahweh of hosts, the [one who] planted you, has spoken evil against you, because of the evil of the house of Israel and the house of Judah, that they have done to themselves, to provoke me to anger by making smoke offerings to Baal."

{And then}, if they diligently learn the ways of my people, to swear by my name, '{as Yahweh lives},' even as they taught my people to swear by Baal, then they will live in the midst of my people.

"Now in the prophets of Samaria I saw a disgusting thing. They prophesied by Baal and they caused my people Israel to err.

who plan to make my people forget my name by their dreams that they tell each one to his neighbor, just as their ancestors forgot my name through Baal?

And the Chaldeans, who are fighting against this city, will come and set this city on fire, and they will burn it, and the houses where they have made smoke offerings on their roofs to Baal, and [where] they have devoted libations to other gods, in order to provoke me to anger.

And they built the high places of Baal that [are] in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to present as offerings their sons and their daughters to Molech, which I had not commanded them, and it had not come to my {mind} to do this detestable thing in order to cause Judah to sin."

But the Baal has taken all the work of our fathers from our earliest days; their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters.

Instead they have followed the stubborn inclinations of their own hearts. They have paid allegiance to the gods called Baal, as their fathers taught them to do.

"How can you say, 'I have not made myself unclean. I have not paid allegiance to the gods called Baal.' Just look at the way you have behaved in the Valley of Hinnom! Think about the things you have done there! You are like a flighty, young female camel that rushes here and there, crisscrossing its path.