“And they shall no more offer their sacrifices unto devils, after whom they have gone a whoring. This shall be a statute for ever unto them throughout their generations.”
They must no longer offer any of their sacrifices to the goat idols to whom they prostitute themselves. This is to be a lasting ordinance for them and for the generations to come. The prohibition against sacrifice to the goat idols — the se'irim, the goat-demons or goat-idols of the surrounding cultures — grounds the centralized sacrifice requirement in the covenant's exclusive loyalty. The Israelites have been offering sacrifices in the open fields not necessarily as informal worship but potentially as offerings to the goat-idols. The lasting ordinance communicates that the prohibition against idolatrous sacrifice extends across the generations.
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