"For in the day that I visit the transgressions of Israel on him, I will also visit the altars of Bethel; And the horns of the altar will be cut off, And fall to the ground.
"It has commonly been assumed that the golden calves were direct representations of Yahweh as bull-god,"[37] and some commentators claim that the true God was thus worshipped in Israel; but the very making of those golden calves was a flagrant violation of the law of God as known for centuries prior to Jeroboam.  Aaron, it will be remembered, had done such a thing in the wilderness of wanderings while Moses was absent to receive the tables of the law, an event quite early in Israel's history; and that sinful episode had resulted in unqualified disaster for the Israelites. This action, therefore, on the part of Jeroboam was actually a repudiation of the worship of God, no matter how he had dressed it up and attempted to make it look like a "new form" of genuine worship.  "The bull affiliations of Baal were too closely connected with the more degrading aspects of pagan cults to be safe, and there is every indication that the Northern Kingdom fell a prey to idolatrous pollution as a result."[38] The stinging words of this prophecy also indicate that the people were lying down upon pledged garments "beside every altar" (Amos 2:8), a plain reference to the fornication that was openly practiced in "the house of god!"  Israel had forsaken the true God and had gone back to the gross idolatry of the old Canaanites, even adoring their filthy old "bull god."  It is no wonder that God promised to "visit" those altars in Bethel, with the purpose of their total destruction.  "The punishment of these altars suggests that false religion is the root of social decadence."[39] In fact, false religion was the root of all Israel's sorrow.