'Nations' in the Bible

but walked in the way of the kings of Israel. He even made his son pass through the fire, imitating the detestable practices of the nations the Lord had dispossessed before the Israelites.

They had lived according to the customs of the nations that the Lord had dispossessed before the Israelites and the customs the kings of Israel had introduced.

They burned incense on all the high places just like those nations that the Lord had driven out before them. They did evil things, provoking the Lord.

They rejected His statutes and His covenant He had made with their ancestors and the decrees He had given them. They pursued worthless idols and became worthless themselves, following the surrounding nations the Lord had commanded them not to imitate.

The settlers spoke to the king of Assyria, saying, “The nations that you have deported and placed in the cities of Samaria do not know the requirements of the God of the land. Therefore He has sent lions among them that are killing them because the people don’t know the requirements of the God of the land.”

They feared the Lord, but they also worshiped their own gods according to the custom of the nations where they had been deported from.

These nations feared the Lord but also served their idols. Their children and grandchildren continue doing as their fathers did until today.

Has any of the gods of the nations ever delivered his land from the power of the king of Assyria?

Did the gods of the nations that my predecessors destroyed rescue them—nations such as Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the Edenites in Telassar?

Lord, it is true that the kings of Assyria have devastated the nations and their lands.

He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight, imitating the detestable practices of the nations that the Lord had dispossessed before the Israelites.

But they did not listen; Manasseh caused them to stray so that they did greater evil than the nations the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites.