"For long ago I broke your yoke and tore off your bonds, But you said, "I won't serve you!' Instead, on every high hill and under every green tree, you bend down to commit fornication.

In the time of King Josiah the LORD told me, "Have you seen what unfaithful Israel did? She went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and she committed fornication there.

"Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have rebelled against the LORD your God, and have scattered your favors to strangers under every green tree. But you haven't obeyed me,' declares the LORD.

and have grown fat and sleek. There is no limit to their evil deeds. They don't argue the case of the orphan to secure justice. They don't defend the rights of the poor.

Even the stork in the sky knows its seasons, and the dove, the swallow, and the crane observe the time for migration. But my people don't know the requirements of the LORD.

Speak! "This is what the LORD says: "The corpses of people will fall like dung on the surface of the field, and like a row of cut grain behind the harvester when there is no one to gather it."'"

The LORD once called you a green olive tree, with beautiful shape and fruit. With a great roaring sound, he has set fire to it and its branches will be destroyed.

Although they fast, I won't listen to their cry, and although they offer burnt offerings and grain offerings, I won't accept them. Instead, I'll put an end to them with the sword, with famine, and with a plague."

When their sons remember, they remember their altars and their Asherah poles beside green trees on the high hills.

He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by a stream. He won't fear when the heat comes, and his leaves will be green. In a year of drought he won't be concerned, nor will he stop producing fruit."

They'll come from the cities of Judah, from the places around Jerusalem, from the territory of Benjamin, from the Shephelah, from the hill country, and from the Negev, bringing burnt offerings, sacrifices, grain offerings, and incense, and bringing thanksgiving offerings to the LORD's Temple.

You who live in Lebanon, who build your nest in the cedars, how you will groan when pains come upon you, pain like that of a woman giving birth.

They'll come and cry out with joy on the heights of Zion. They'll be radiant over the LORD's goodness, over the grain, the new wine, the fresh oil, and over the young of the flocks and herds. Their lives will be like a well-watered garden. They'll never again grow faint.

nor will the Levitical priests be without a man offering up burnt offerings, bringing in grain offerings, and offering sacrifices continuously before me.'"

eighty men from Shechem, from Shiloh, and from Samaria came with their beards shaved, their clothes torn, and their bodies slashed. They had grain offerings and incense with them to present at the LORD's Temple.

Come to her from afar. Open up her barns. Pile her up like heaps of grain, and completely destroy her. Don't leave any survivors.

"Therefore, look, days are coming," declares the LORD, "when I'll punish her idols, and throughout her land the wounded will groan.