2 Kings 17:8–15

8 gand walked in the customs of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel, hand in the customs that the kings of Israel had practiced. 9 And the people of Israel did secretly against the Lord their God things that were not right. They built for themselves high places in all their towns, ifrom watchtower to fortified city. 10 They set up for themselves jpillars and Asherim on every high hill and under every green tree, 11 and there they made offerings on all the high places, as the nations did whom the Lord carried away before them. And they did wicked things, provoking the Lord to anger, 12 and they served idols, kof which the Lord had said to them, “You shall not do this.” 13 Yet the Lord lwarned Israel and Judah mby every prophet nand every seer, saying, o“Turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes, in accordance with all the Law that I commanded your fathers, and that I sent to you by my servants the prophets.”

14 But they would not listen, pbut were stubborn, as their fathers had been, who did not believe in the Lord their God. 15 They despised his statutes qand his covenant that he made with their fathers and the warnings that he gave them. They went after rfalse idols sand became false, and they followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the tLord had commanded them that they should not do like them.