And you must say, ‘O mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Sovereign Lord Jehovah: This is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah has said to the mountains and to the hills, to the stream beds and to the valleys:

“‘“Here I am! I am bringing upon you a sword, and I shall certainly destroy your high places. And your altars must be made desolate and your incense stands must be broken, and I will cause your slain ones to fall before your dungy idols.

The “high places” were places for idolatrous worship to be carried on. By means of their altars, incense stands and dungy idols, the unfaithful Israelites were polluting the mountains, hills, valleys and banks of the stream beds of their God-given possession. Jehovah God had meant for that beautiful land to be sanctified as a place of his clean worship, but after 860 years of occupancy it was desecrated. By turning from the pure worship of God and from following his laws, there was moral corruption. Bloodshed defiled the land.

Actually, their polluted condition all hinged on their bad attitude toward Jehovah. So the only way to cleanse the land was to take drastic action against its defilers, so that those mountains, stream beds and valleys would be clean and the land would, in effect, ‘know that God is Jehovah.’