Ezekiel 20:18-26

18“But I said to their children in the wilderness, ‘Do not walk in the statutes of your fathers nor observe their ordinances nor defile yourselves with their idols.

19I am the Lord your God; walk in My statutes and keep My ordinances and observe them.

20Sanctify My Sabbaths and keep them holy; and they shall be a sign between Me and you, that you may know [without any doubt] that I am the Lord your God.’

21Yet the children rebelled against Me; they did not walk in My statutes, nor were they careful to observe My ordinances, which, if a man keeps, he will live; they profaned My Sabbaths. Then I decided to pour out My wrath on them and finish My anger against them in the wilderness.

22Yet I withdrew My hand and acted for My Name’s sake, that it would not be profaned in the sight of the [pagan] nations in whose sight I had brought them out [of slavery].

23Moreover, I swore to them in the wilderness that I would scatter them among the [Gentile] nations and disperse them among the countries,

24because they had not observed My ordinances, but had [dishonored and] rejected My statutes and had profaned My Sabbaths, and set their eyes on the [man-made] idols of their fathers.

25[Therefore] I also gave them statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not live;

26and I pronounced them unclean because of their offerings [to their idols], in that they made all their firstborn pass through the fire [as pagan sacrifices], so that I might make them desolate, in order that they might know [without any doubt] that I am the Lord.” ’