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Daniel 9:8
O LORD, we have been humiliated– our kings, our leaders, and our ancestors– because we have sinned against you.
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2 Chronicles 33 4-2 Chronicles 33 7
He built altars in the LORD’s temple, about which the LORD had said,“ Jerusalem will be my permanent home.”In the two courtyards of the LORD’s temple he built altars for all the stars in the sky.He passed his sons through the fire in the Valley of Ben-Hinnom and practiced divination, omen reading, and sorcery. He set up a ritual pit to conjure up underworld spirits and appointed magicians to supervise it. He did a great amount of evil in the sight of the LORD and angered him.He put an idolatrous image he had made in God’s temple, about which God had said to David and to his son Solomon,“ This temple in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, will be my permanent home.
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Micah 3:1-4
I said,“ Listen, you leaders of Jacob, you rulers of the nation of Israel! You ought to know what is just,yet you hate what is good, and love what is evil. You flay my people’s skin and rip the flesh from their bones.You devour my people’s flesh, strip off their skin, and crush their bones. You chop them up like flesh in a pot– like meat in a kettle.Someday these sinners will cry to the LORD for help, but he will not answer them. He will hide his face from them at that time, because they have done such wicked deeds.”
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Zephaniah 3:3-4
Her princes are as fierce as roaring lions; her rulers are as hungry as wolves in the desert, who completely devour their prey by morning.Her prophets are proud; they are deceitful men. Her priests defile what is holy; they break God’s laws.
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Daniel 9:6
We have not paid attention to your servants the prophets, who spoke by your authority to our kings, our leaders, and our ancestors, and to all the inhabitants of the land as well.
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Jeremiah 38:4
So these officials said to the king,“ This man must be put to death. For he is demoralizing the soldiers who are left in the city as well as all the other people there by these things he is saying. This man is not seeking to help these people but is trying to harm them.”
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Micah 7:2
Faithful men have disappeared from the land; there are no godly men left. They all wait in ambush so they can shed blood; they hunt their own brother with a net.
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Micah 3:9-11
Listen to this, you leaders of the family of Jacob, you rulers of the nation of Israel! You hate justice and pervert all that is right.You build Zion through bloody crimes, Jerusalem through unjust violence.Her leaders take bribes when they decide legal cases, her priests proclaim rulings for profit, and her prophets read omens for pay. Yet they claim to trust the LORD and say,“ The LORD is among us. Disaster will not overtake us!”
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Ezekiel 22:26-28
Her priests abuse my law and have desecrated my holy things. They do not distinguish between the holy and the profane, or recognize any distinction between the unclean and the clean. They ignore my Sabbaths and I am profaned in their midst.Her officials are like wolves in her midst rending their prey– shedding blood and destroying lives– so they can get dishonest profit.Her prophets coat their messages with whitewash. They see false visions and announce lying omens for them, saying,‘ This is what the sovereign LORD says,’ when the LORD has not spoken.
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Ezra 9:7
From the days of our fathers until this very day our guilt has been great. Because of our iniquities we, along with our kings and priests, have been delivered over by the local kings to sword, captivity, plunder, and embarrassment– right up to the present time.
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Jeremiah 37:13-15
But he only got as far as the Benjamin Gate. There an officer in charge of the guards named Irijah, who was the son of Shelemiah and the grandson of Hananiah, stopped him. He seized Jeremiah and said,“ You are deserting to the Babylonians!”Jeremiah answered,“ That’s a lie! I am not deserting to the Babylonians.” But Irijah would not listen to him. Irijah put Jeremiah under arrest and took him to the officials.The officials were very angry at Jeremiah. They had him flogged and put in prison in the house of Jonathan, the royal secretary, which they had converted into a place for confining prisoners.
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Ezekiel 22:6
“‘ See how each of the princes of Israel living within you has used his authority to shed blood.
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Ezekiel 8:5-16
He said to me,“ Son of man, look up toward the north.” So I looked up toward the north, and I noticed to the north of the altar gate was this statue of jealousy at the entrance.He said to me,“ Son of man, do you see what they are doing– the great abominations that the people of Israel are practicing here, to drive me far from my sanctuary? But you will see greater abominations than these!”He brought me to the entrance of the court, and as I watched, I noticed a hole in the wall.He said to me,“ Son of man, dig into the wall.” So I dug into the wall and discovered a doorway.He said to me,“ Go in and see the evil abominations they are practicing here.”So I went in and looked. I noticed every figure of creeping thing and beast– detestable images– and every idol of the house of Israel, engraved on the wall all around.Seventy men from the elders of the house of Israel( with Jaazaniah son of Shaphan standing among them) were standing in front of them, each with a censer in his hand, and fragrant vapors from a cloud of incense were swirling upward.He said to me,“ Do you see, son of man, what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, each in the chamber of his idolatrous images? For they think,‘ The LORD does not see us! The LORD has abandoned the land!’”He said to me,“ You will see them practicing even greater abominations!”Then he brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the LORD’s house. I noticed women sitting there weeping for Tammuz.He said to me,“ Do you see this, son of man? You will see even greater abominations than these!”Then he brought me to the inner court of the LORD’s house. Right there at the entrance to the LORD’s temple, between the porch and the altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs to the LORD’s temple, facing east– they were worshiping the sun toward the east!
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2 Chronicles 28 3
He offered sacrifices in the Valley of Ben-Hinnom and passed his sons through the fire, a horrible sin practiced by the nations whom the LORD drove out before the Israelites.
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Jeremiah 5:5
I will go to the leaders and speak with them. Surely they know what the LORD demands. Surely they know what their God requires of them.” Yet all of them, too, have rejected his authority and refuse to submit to him.
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2 Kings 16 10-2 Kings 16 16
When King Ahaz went to meet with King Tiglath-pileser of Assyria in Damascus, he saw the altar there. King Ahaz sent to Uriah the priest a drawing of the altar and a blueprint for its design.Uriah the priest built an altar in conformity to the plans King Ahaz had sent from Damascus. Uriah the priest finished it before King Ahaz arrived back from Damascus.When the king arrived back from Damascus and saw the altar, he approached it and offered a sacrifice on it.He offered his burnt sacrifice and his grain offering. He poured out his libation and sprinkled the blood from his peace offerings on the altar.He moved the bronze altar that stood in the LORD’s presence from the front of the temple( between the altar and the LORD’s temple) and put it on the north side of the new altar.King Ahaz ordered Uriah the priest,“ On the large altar offer the morning burnt sacrifice, the evening grain offering, the royal burnt sacrifices and grain offering, the burnt sacrifice for all the people of Israel, their grain offering, and their libations. Sprinkle all the blood of the burnt sacrifice and other sacrifices on it. The bronze altar will be for my personal use.”So Uriah the priest did exactly as King Ahaz ordered.
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2 Chronicles 33 9
But Manasseh misled the people of Judah and the residents of Jerusalem so that they sinned more than the nations whom the LORD had destroyed ahead of the Israelites.