Ezekiel 20:18-26

¹⁸And I said unto their children in the wilderness, Walk ye not in the statutes of your fathers, neither observe their ordinances, nor defile yourselves with their idols. ¹⁹I am Jehovah your God: walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them; ²⁰and hallow my sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am Jehovah your God. ²¹But the children rebelled against me; they walked not in my statutes, neither kept mine ordinances to do them, which if a man do, he shall live in them; they profaned my sabbaths. Then I said I would pour out my wrath upon them, to accomplish my anger against them in the wilderness. ²²Nevertheless I withdrew my hand, and wrought for my name`s sake, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations, in whose sight I brought them forth. <sup>23</sup>Moreover I sware unto them in the wilderness, that I would scatter them among the nations, and disperse them through the countries; <sup>24</sup>because they had not executed mine ordinances, but had rejected my statutes, and had profaned my sabbaths, and their eyes were after their fathers` idols. ²⁵Moreover also I gave them statutes that were not good, and ordinances wherein they should not live; ²⁶and I polluted them in their own gifts, in that they caused to pass through [the fire] all that openeth the womb, that I might make them desolate, to the end that they might know that I am Jehovah.