Jeremiah 7:9-10

9, 10. Will ye steal… and burn incense unto Baal The precise thought of this notable passage is obscured, if not, indeed, materially changed, in the Authorized Version. It is not the plea of the fatalist, but of the ritualist, which is here reproved. Their sin and blasphemy consisted in setting religious services over against the grossest immoralities in their lives, so that, though doing all these abominations, they claimed to be delivered that, is, freed from all the consequences by coming and standing before God in his house. It was not the first instance and, alas! not the last in which the “worship of the body” has been supposed to atone for the sins of the soul.