ירמיהו, פרק י״ט, פסוק ד׳

A severe indictment is brought against the people, weaving together active spiritual betrayal and cruel bloodshed. The impending punishment stems directly from their complete abandonment of God.

At the heart of this betrayal is the deep alienation of a sacred space, treating it as something entirely foreign [מצודת ציון]. Commentators offer different perspectives on how this estrangement took place. One approach explains that the people made the land alien to God by ceasing to offer sacrifices to Him, behaving as though the land did not belong to Him at all [רש"י, מצודת דוד]. Conversely, another perspective suggests an active corruption of the space. The people deliberately dedicated the area to idolatry, introducing foreign worship into the Valley of Ben Hinnom, a beautiful region near the city [מלבי"ם, ביאור שטיינזלץ]. By its very nature, this space is completely unable to tolerate such idol worship [רד"ק].

Instead of serving God, the people chose to burn incense to foreign deities. This practice was widespread, actively shared by the current generation, their ancestors, and the kings of Judah [מצודת דוד]. However, the people cannot excuse their actions by claiming they were simply following ancestral traditions. The gods they worshipped were entirely foreign, having been completely unknown to both them and their ancestors in the past [מלבי"ם].

This spiritual decline ultimately reaches a horrifying peak with the spilling of innocent blood. The people filled the area with blood by building altars specifically for human sacrifice [מלבי"ם]. This innocent blood refers directly to the children and human souls who were sacrificed to the idol Molech [מצודת דוד, מלבי"ם]. Through these cruel rituals, the grave sins of idolatry and murder became tragically intertwined, existing side by side [ביאור שטיינזלץ].