Shrines

Jeroboam also built shrines on the high places and appointed from every class of people priests who were not Levites.

…for the message that he cried out by the word of the LORD against the altar in Bethel and against all the shrines on the high places in the cities of Samaria will surely come to pass.”

Nevertheless, the people of each nation continued to make their own gods in the cities where they had settled, and they set them up in the shrines that the people of Samaria had made on the high places.

So the new residents worshiped the LORD, but they also appointed for themselves priests of all sorts to serve in the shrines of the high places.

Just as Josiah had done at Bethel, so also in the cities of Samaria he removed all the shrines of the high places set up by the kings of Israel who had provoked the LORD to anger.

At the head of every street you built your lofty shrines and degraded your beauty. With increasing promiscuity, you spread your legs to all who passed by.

But when you built your mounds at the head of every street and made your lofty shrines in every public square, you were not even like a prostitute, because you scorned payment.

Then I will deliver you into the hands of your lovers, and they will level your mounds and tear down your lofty shrines. They will strip off your clothes, take your fine jewelry, and leave you naked and bare.

Among you are slanderous men bent on bloodshed; within you are those who eat on the mountain shrines and commit acts of indecency.

It began with a silversmith named Demetrius who made silver shrines of Artemis, bringing much business to the craftsmen.