²⁸ Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold; and he said to them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: see your gods, Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt.

¹⁶ They forsook all the commandments of Yahweh their God, and made them molten images, even two calves, and made an Asherah, and worshiped all the host of the sky, and served Baal.

²⁹ However from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, with which he made Israel to sin, Jehu didn't depart from after them, [to wit], the golden calves that were in Bethel, and that were in Dan.

⁸ They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them. They have made themselves a molten calf, and have worshiped it, and have sacrificed to it, and said, 'These are your gods, Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt.'"

⁴ He received what they handed him, and fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made it a molten calf; and they said, "These are your gods, Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt."

⁴ They have set up kings, but not by me. They have made princes, and I didn't approve. Of their silver and their gold they have made themselves idols, That they may be cut off.

⁵ Let Samaria throw out his calf-idol! My anger burns against them! How long will it be before the are capable of purity?

⁶ For this is even from Israel! The workman made it, and it is no God; Indeed, the calf of Samaria shall be broken in pieces.

⁷ For they sow the wind, And they will reap the whirlwind. He has no standing grain. The stalk will yield no head. If it does yield, strangers will swallow it up.

¹⁵ and he appointed him priests for the high places, and for the male goats, and for the calves which he had made.

¹⁹ promising them liberty, while they themselves are bondservants of corruption; for by whom a man is overcome, by the same is he also brought into bondage.

⁵ The inhabitants of Samaria will be in terror for the calves of Beth Aven; For its people will mourn over it, Along with its priests who rejoiced over it, For its glory, because it has departed from it.

⁶ It also will be carried to Assyria for a present to a great king. Ephraim will receive shame, And Israel will be ashamed of his own counsel.

¹⁰ who tell the seers, "Don't see;" and to the prophets, "Don't prophesy to us right things, speak to us smooth things, prophesy deceits,

¹ Woe to the rebellious children, says Yahweh, who take counsel, but not of me; and who make a league, but not of my Spirit, that they may add sin to sin,

⁸ But he forsook the counsel of the old men which they had given him, and took counsel with the young men who had grown up with him, who stood before him.

⁹ He said to them, What counsel do you give, that we may return answer to this people, who have spoken to me, saying, Make the yoke that your father did put on us lighter?

¹⁴ Yahweh commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and ordinances, that you might do them in the land where you go over to possess it.

¹⁵ Take therefore good heed to yourselves; for you saw no manner of form on the day that Yahweh spoke to you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire.

¹⁶ Lest you corrupt yourselves, and make yourself an engraved image in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female,

¹⁷ the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the sky,

¹⁸ the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth;

⁴ "You shall not make for yourselves an idol, nor any image of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:

¹⁰ Come, let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply, and it happen that when any war breaks out, they also join themselves to our enemies, and fight against us, and escape out of the land."