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101 Bible Verses about the Importance of Staying Away from Idols
“You shall have no other gods before me.“You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is on the earth beneath or that is in the water below.You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God, responding to the transgression of fathers by dealing with children to the third and fourth generations of those who reject me,
You must not make for yourself an image of anything in heaven above, on earth below, or in the waters beneath.You must not worship or serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God. I punish the sons, grandsons, and great-grandsons for the sin of the fathers who reject me,
Even now they persist in sin! They make metal images for themselves, idols that they skillfully fashion from their own silver; all of them are nothing but the work of craftsmen! There is a saying about them: “Those who sacrifice to the calf idol are calf kissers!”
All idolaters will prove to be stupid and ignorant. Every goldsmith will be disgraced by the idol he made. For the image he forges is merely a sham. There is no breath in any of those idols.
Your altars will be ruined and your incense altars will be broken. I will throw down your slain in front of your idols.
Before I restore them I will punish them in full for their sins and the wrongs they have done. For they have polluted my land with the lifeless statues of their disgusting idols. They have filled the land I have claimed as my own with their detestable idols.”
At that time men will throw their silver and gold idols, which they made for themselves to worship, into the caves where rodents and bats live,
“Announce the news among the nations! Proclaim it! Signal for people to pay attention! Declare the news! Do not hide it! Say: ‘Babylon will be captured. Bel will be put to shame. Marduk will be dismayed. Babylon’s idols will be put to shame. Her disgusting images will be dismayed.
Then the Lord said to Moses, “You are about to die, and then these people will begin to prostitute themselves with the foreign gods of the land into which they are going. They will reject me and break my covenant that I have made with them.
They will all be ashamed and embarrassed; those who fashion idols will all be humiliated.
Such idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field. They cannot talk. They must be carried because they cannot walk. Do not be afraid of them because they cannot hurt you. And they do not have any power to help you.”
The Babylonian soldiers that are attacking this city will break into it and set it on fire. They will burn it down along with the houses where people have made me angry by offering sacrifices to the god Baal and by pouring out drink offerings to other gods on their rooftops.
Josiah also got rid of the ritual pits used to conjure up spirits, the magicians, personal idols, disgusting images, and all the detestable idols that had appeared in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem. In this way he carried out the terms of the law recorded on the scroll that Hilkiah the priest had discovered in the Lord’s temple.
you who practice ritual sex under the oaks and every green tree, who slaughter children near the streams under the rocky overhangs.
They will be spread out and exposed to the sun, the moon and the stars. These are things they adored and served, things to which they paid allegiance, from which they sought guidance, and worshiped. The bones of these people will never be regathered and reburied. They will be like manure used to fertilize the ground.
They have made me jealous with false gods, enraging me with their worthless gods; so I will make them jealous with a people they do not recognize, with a nation slow to learn I will enrage them.
You have sacrificed to other gods! You have sinned against the Lord! You have not obeyed the Lord! You have not followed his laws, his statutes, and his decrees! That is why this disaster that is evident to this day has happened to you.”
Remember what I accomplished in antiquity! Truly I am God, I have no peer; I am God, and there is none like me,
So I poured my anger on them because of the blood they shed on the land and because of the idols with which they defiled it.
For though I, the Lord who rules over all, planted you in the land, I now decree that disaster will come on you because the nations of Israel and Judah have done evil and have made me angry by offering sacrifices to the god Baal.”
As if following in the sinful footsteps of Jeroboam son of Nebat were not bad enough, he married Jezebel the daughter of King Ethbaal of the Sidonians. Then he worshiped and bowed to Baal.
yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we live, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we live.
I said to them, “Each of you must get rid of the detestable idols you keep before you, and do not defile yourselves with the idols of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.”
Look, you are nothing, and your accomplishments are nonexistent; the one who chooses to worship you is disgusting.
I hear my dear people crying out throughout the length and breadth of the land. They are crying, ‘Is the Lord no longer in Zion? Is her divine King no longer there?’” The Lord answers, “Why then do they provoke me to anger with their images, with their worthless foreign idols?”
He feeds on ashes; his deceived mind misleads him. He cannot rescue himself, nor does he say, ‘Is this not a false god I hold in my right hand?’
You should not turn aside after empty things that can’t profit and can’t deliver, since they are empty.
Those who trust in idols will turn back and be utterly humiliated, those who say to metal images, ‘You are our gods.’”
How great is your favor, which you store up for your loyal followers! In plain sight of everyone you bestow it on those who take shelter in you.
I announced them to you beforehand; before they happened, I predicted them for you, so you could never say, ‘My image did these things, my idol, my cast image, decreed them.’
This is in spite of the fact that the people of Judah have as many gods as they have towns and the citizens of Jerusalem have set up as many altars to sacrifice to that disgusting god, Baal, as they have streets in the city!’
This is what the Lord, Israel’s king, says, their protector, the Lord who commands armies: “I am the first and I am the last, there is no God but me.
But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we don’t serve your gods, and we will not pay homage to the golden statue that you have erected.”
Children are gathering firewood, fathers are building fires with it, and women are mixing dough to bake cakes to offer to the goddess they call the Queen of Heaven. They are also pouring out drink offerings to other gods. They seem to do all this just to trouble me.
Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, depravity,Listen! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you at all!idolatry, sorcery, hostilities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish rivalries, dissensions, factions,envying, murder, drunkenness, carousing, and similar things. I am warning you, as I had warned you before: Those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God!
“You shall have no other gods before me.“You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is on the earth beneath or that is in the water below.
For you must not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.
When you cry out for help, let your idols help you! The wind blows them all away, a breeze carries them away. But the one who looks to me for help will inherit the land and will have access to my holy mountain.”
The nations’ idols are made of silver and gold, they are man-made.They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but cannot see,and ears, but cannot hear. Indeed, they cannot breathe.Those who make them will end up like them, as will everyone who trusts in them.
Samuel said to all the people of Israel, “If you are really turning to the Lord with all your hearts, remove from among you the foreign gods and the images of Ashtoreth. Give your hearts to the Lord and serve only him. Then he will deliver you from the hand of the Philistines.”
But where are the gods you made for yourselves? Let them save you when you are in trouble. The sad fact is that you have as many gods as you have towns, Judah.
O Ephraim, I do not want to have anything to do with idols anymore! I will answer him and care for him. I am like a luxuriant cypress tree; your fruitfulness comes from me!
The Lord made an agreement with them and instructed them, “You must not worship other gods. Do not bow down to them, serve them, or offer sacrifices to them.
What good is an idol? Why would a craftsman make it? What good is a metal image that gives misleading oracles? Why would its creator place his trust in it and make such mute, worthless things?
You must tear down their altars, shatter their sacred pillars, burn up their sacred Asherah poles, and cut down the images of their gods; you must eliminate their very memory from that place.
Be on guard so that you do not forget the covenant of the Lord your God that he has made with you, and that you do not make an image of any kind, just as he has forbidden you.For the Lord your God is a consuming fire; he is a jealous God.
“Pay attention to do everything I have told you, and do not even mention the names of other gods – do not let them be heard on your lips.
You must burn the images of their gods, but do not covet the silver and gold that covers them so much that you take it for yourself and thus become ensnared by it; for it is abhorrent to the Lord your God.You must not bring any abhorrent thing into your house and thereby become an object of divine wrath along with it. You must absolutely detest and abhor it, for it is an object of divine wrath.
Their idols are made of silver and gold – they are man-made.They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but cannot see,ears, but cannot hear, noses, but cannot smell,hands, but cannot touch, feet, but cannot walk. They cannot even clear their throats.Those who make them will end up like them, as will everyone who trusts in them.
I am the Lord! That is my name! I will not share my glory with anyone else, or the praise due me with idols.
All these idolaters will prove to be stupid and ignorant. Every goldsmith will be disgraced by the idol he made. For the image he forges is merely a sham. There is no breath in any of those idols.They are worthless, mere objects to be mocked. When the time comes to punish them, they will be destroyed.
Do not turn to idols, and you must not make for yourselves gods of cast metal. I am the Lord your God.
They put it on their shoulder and carry it; they put it in its place and it just stands there; it does not move from its place. Even when someone cries out to it, it does not reply; it does not deliver him from his distress.
Then those living in the towns of Judah and in Jerusalem will go and cry out for help to the gods to whom they have been sacrificing. However, those gods will by no means be able to save them when disaster strikes them.
‘Cursed is the one who makes a carved or metal image – something abhorrent to the Lord, the work of the craftsman – and sets it up in a secret place.’ Then all the people will say, ‘Amen!’
All who worship idols are ashamed, those who boast about worthless idols. All the gods bow down before him.
Gather together and come! Approach together, you refugees from the nations! Those who carry wooden idols know nothing, those who pray to a god that cannot deliver.
“‘As for you, O house of Israel, this is what the sovereign Lord says: Each of you go and serve your idols, if you will not listen to me. But my holy name will not be profaned again by your sacrifices and your idols.
“King Manasseh of Judah has committed horrible sins. He has sinned more than the Amorites before him and has encouraged Judah to sin by worshiping his disgusting idols.
“Do so because my people have committed a double wrong: they have rejected me, the fountain of life-giving water, and they have dug cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns which cannot even hold water.”
With the rest of it he makes a god, his idol; he bows down to it and worships it. He prays to it, saying, ‘Rescue me, for you are my god!’
“You must not bow down to their gods; you must not serve them or do according to their practices. Instead you must completely overthrow them and smash their standing stones to pieces.
“Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: Return! Turn from your idols, and turn your faces away from your abominations.
With regard then to eating food sacrificed to idols, we know that “an idol in this world is nothing,” and that “there is no God but one.”
You will desecrate your silver-plated idols and your gold-plated images. You will throw them away as if they were a menstrual rag, saying to them, “Get out!”
Because she took her prostitution so lightly, she defiled the land through her adulterous worship of gods made of wood and stone.
Although they claimed to be wise, they became foolsand exchanged the glory of the immortal God for an image resembling mortal human beings or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles.
But to the cowards, unbelievers, detestable persons, murderers, the sexually immoral, and those who practice magic spells, idol worshipers, and all those who lie, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur. That is the second death.”
When the Lord your God eliminates the nations from the place where you are headed and you dispossess them, you will settle down in their land.You must tear down their altars, shatter their sacred pillars, burn up their sacred Asherah poles, and cut down the images of their gods; you must eliminate their very memory from that place.After they have been destroyed from your presence, be careful not to be ensnared like they are; do not pursue their gods and say, “How do these nations serve their gods? I will do the same.”You must not worship the Lord your God the way they do! For everything that is abhorrent to him, everything he hates, they have done when worshiping their gods. They even burn up their sons and daughters before their gods!
For the religion of these people is worthless. They cut down a tree in the forest, and a craftsman makes it into an idol with his tools.He decorates it with overlays of silver and gold. He uses hammer and nails to fasten it together so that it will not fall over.Such idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field. They cannot talk. They must be carried because they cannot walk. Do not be afraid of them because they cannot hurt you. And they do not have any power to help you.”
Bel kneels down, Nebo bends low. Their images weigh down animals and beasts. Your heavy images are burdensome to tired animals.who announces the end from the beginning and reveals beforehand what has not yet occurred, who says, ‘My plan will be realized, I will accomplish what I desire,’who summons an eagle from the east, from a distant land, one who carries out my plan. Yes, I have decreed, yes, I will bring it to pass; I have formulated a plan, yes, I will carry it out.Listen to me, you stubborn people, you who distance yourself from doing what is right.I am bringing my deliverance near, it is not far away; I am bringing my salvation near, it does not wait. I will save Zion; I will adorn Israel with my splendor.”Together they bend low and kneel down; they are unable to rescue the images; they themselves head off into captivity.
So put to death whatever in your nature belongs to the earth: sexual immorality, impurity, shameful passion, evil desire, and greed which is idolatry.
And what mutual agreement does the temple of God have with idols? For we are the temple of the living God, just as God said, “I will live in them and will walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.”Therefore “come out from their midst, and be separate,” says the Lord, “and touch no unclean thing, and I will welcome you,
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding.Acknowledge him in all your ways, and he will make your paths straight.
“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
Adulterers, do you not know that friendship with the world means hostility toward God? So whoever decides to be the world’s friend makes himself God’s enemy.
For many live, about whom I have often told you, and now, with tears, I tell you that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ.Their end is destruction, their god is the belly, they exult in their shame, and they think about earthly things.
The fear of the Lord is like a life-giving fountain, to turn people from deadly snares.
their troubles multiply, they desire other gods. I will not pour out drink offerings of blood to their gods, nor will I make vows in the name of their gods.
Do any of the worthless idols of the nations cause rain to fall? Do the skies themselves send showers? Is it not you, O Lord our God, who does this? So we put our hopes in you because you alone do all this.”
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace but a sword.For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law,and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household.