¹³ The Lord had testified against Israel and against Judah through every prophet and every seer saying, “Turn from your evil ways. Keep my commandments and my statutes according to the law that I gave your fathers and which I sent you by my servants, the prophets.” ¹⁴ But they would not listen. They hardened their necks to make them just like the necks of their fathers who had not believed in the Lord, their God. ¹⁵ They despised his statutes and his covenant that he had made with their fathers and the warnings by which he bore witness against them. They followed after vain idols, becoming foolish. They also followed after the nations that surrounded them, the ones of whom the Lord had told them that they should not do what they did.