TSK · Jeremiah 2:20

I have come down to deliver them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up from that land to a land that is both good and spacious, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the region of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.

Moses came and told the people all the LORD’s words and all the decisions. All the people answered together,“We are willing to do all the words that the LORD has said,”

I am the LORD your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, from being their slaves, and I broke the bars of your yoke and caused you to walk upright.

Or has God ever before tried to deliver a nation from the middle of another nation, accompanied by judgments, signs, wonders, war, strength, power, and other very terrifying things like the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?

You must by all means destroy all the places where the nations you are about to dispossess worship their gods– on the high mountains and hills and under every leafy tree.

Today you have declared the LORD to be your God, and that you will walk in his ways, keep his statutes, commandments, and ordinances, and obey him.

The people said to Joshua,“We will worship the LORD our God and obey him.”

A Monotonous Cycle The Israelites did evil before the LORD by worshiping the Baals.

The Lord’s Patience Runs Short The Israelites again did evil in the LORD’s sight. They worshiped the Baals and the Ashtoreths, as well as the gods of Syria, Sidon, Moab, the Ammonites, and the Philistines. They abandoned the LORD and did not worship him.

Jeroboam inaugurated a festival on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, like the festival celebrated in Judah. On the altar in Bethel he offered sacrifices to the calves he had made. In Bethel he also appointed priests for the high places he had made.

They say,“Let’s tear off the shackles they’ve put on us! Let’s free ourselves from their ropes!”

Purifying Judgment How tragic that the once-faithful city has become a prostitute! She was once a center of justice, fairness resided in her, but now only murderers.

At that time the LORD will remove their burden from your shoulders, and their yoke from your neck; the yoke will be taken off because your neck will be too large.

you who inflame your lusts among the oaks and under every green tree, who slaughter children near the streams under the rocky overhangs.

“Look up at the hilltops and consider this. Where have you not been ravished? You waited for those gods like a thief lying in wait in the wilderness. You defiled the land by your wicked prostitution to other gods.

People of Jerusalem, I have seen your adulterous worship, your shameless prostitution to, and your lustful pursuit of, other gods. I have seen your disgusting acts of worship on the hills throughout the countryside. You are doomed to destruction! How long will you continue to be unclean?’”

When the time for them to be rescued comes,” says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies,“I will rescue you from foreign subjugation. I will deliver you from captivity. Foreigners will then no longer subjugate them.

you built yourself a chamber and put up a pavilion in every public square.

When you built your chamber at the head of every street and put up your pavilion in every public square, you were not like a prostitute, because you scoffed at payment.

I brought them to the land which I swore to give them, but whenever they saw any high hill or leafy tree, they offered their sacrifices there and presented the offerings that provoke me to anger. They offered their soothing aroma there and poured out their drink offerings.

Symbols of Sin and Judgment: The Prostitute and Her Children When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, he said to him,“Go marry a prostitute who will bear illegitimate children conceived through prostitution, because the nation continually commits spiritual prostitution by turning away from the LORD.”

Then I told her,“You must live with me many days; you must not commit adultery or become joined to another man, and I also will wait for you.”

And now, I will break Assyria’s yoke bar from your neck; I will tear apart the shackles that are on you.”