For they did not practice My ordinances, but they rejected My statutes and profaned My Sabbaths, fixing their eyes on the idols of their fathers.
Parallel translations
- WEB because they had not executed my ordinances, but had rejected my statutes, and had profaned my Sabbaths, and their eyes were after their fathers’ idols.
- KJV Because they had not executed my judgments, but had despised my statutes, and had polluted my sabbaths, and their eyes were after their fathers’ idols.
- NKJV because they had not executed My judgments, but had despised My statutes, profaned My Sabbaths, and their eyes were fixed on their fathers’ idols.
- NASB because they had not complied with My ordinances, but had rejected My statutes and had profaned My Sabbaths, and their eyes were on the idols of their fathers.
- NLT because they did not obey my regulations. They scorned my decrees by violating my Sabbath days and longing for the idols of their ancestors.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The reason for scattering was their rejection of God's ordinances and Sabbaths and their devotion to their fathers' idols. Their idolatry sealed the sentence of exile.
Overview
God again names the heart of the problem: eyes and affections fixed on idols rather than on Him. The repetition drives home that exile was the righteous fruit of covenant-breaking, not divine caprice. It is a sobering reminder that idolatry, the love of anything above God, brings ruin and must be forsaken.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Ezek 20:16because they kept rejecting My ordinances, refusing to walk in My statutes, and profaning My Sabbaths; for their hearts continually went after their idols.
- Ezek 6:9Then in the nations to which they have been carried captive, your survivors will remember Me—how I have been grieved by their adulterous hearts that turned away from Me, and by their eyes that lusted after idols. So they will loathe themselves for the evil they have done and for all their abominations.
- Amos 2:4This is what the LORD says: “For three transgressions of Judah, even four, I will not revoke My judgment, because they reject the Law of the LORD and fail to keep His statutes; they are led astray by the lies in which their fathers walked.
- Ezek 20:13Yet the house of Israel rebelled against Me in the wilderness. They did not follow My statutes and they rejected My ordinances—though the man who does these things will live by them—and they utterly profaned My Sabbaths. Then I resolved to pour out My wrath upon them and put an end to them in the wilderness.
- Ezek 18:12He oppresses the poor and needy; he commits robbery and does not restore a pledge. He lifts his eyes to idols; he commits abominations.
- Deut 4:19When you look to the heavens and see the sun and moon and stars—all the host of heaven—do not be enticed to bow down and worship what the LORD your God has apportioned to all the nations under heaven.
- Ezek 18:15He does not eat at the mountain or look to the idols of the house of Israel. He does not defile his neighbor’s wife.
- Job 31:26–27if I have beheld the sun in its radiance or the moon moving in splendor,
- Ezek 18:6He does not eat at the mountain or look to the idols of the house of Israel. He does not defile his neighbor’s wife or approach a woman during her period.
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Christ at the center
The promise of one Shepherd-King David, a new heart and new Spirit, and the river of life flowing from the temple all stream toward Christ, the good Shepherd who gives the Spirit.
How Ezekiel 20:24 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.