97 Verses on Unmasking False Gods

‘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!’

“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 have been taught that the Lord alone is God – there is no other besides him.

“Present your argument,” says the Lord. “Produce your evidence,” says Jacob’s king.“Let them produce evidence! Let them tell us what will happen! Tell us about your earlier predictive oracles, so we may examine them and see how they were fulfilled. Or decree for us some future events!Predict how future events will turn out, so we might know you are gods. Yes, do something good or bad, so we might be frightened and in awe.Look, you are nothing, and your accomplishments are nonexistent; the one who chooses to worship you is disgusting.

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.”

Ephraim has attached himself to idols; Do not go near him!

You also took your beautiful jewelry, made of my gold and my silver I had given to you, and made for yourself male images and engaged in prostitution with them.

They sacrificed their sons and daughters to demons.They shed innocent blood – the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan. The land was polluted by bloodshed.

So I went in and looked. I noticed every figure of creeping thing and beast – detestable images – and every idol of the house of Israel, engraved on the wall all around.

Then all the men who were aware that their wives were sacrificing to other gods, as well as all their wives, answered Jeremiah. There was a great crowd of them representing all the people who lived in northern and southern Egypt. They answered,“We will not listen to what you claim the Lord has spoken to us!Instead we will do everything we vowed we would do. We will sacrifice and pour out drink offerings to the goddess called the Queen of Heaven just as we and our ancestors, our kings, and our leaders previously did in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. For then we had plenty of food, were well-off, and had no troubles.But ever since we stopped sacrificing and pouring out drink offerings to the Queen of Heaven, we have been in great need. Our people have died in wars or of starvation.”The women added, “We did indeed sacrifice and pour out drink offerings to the Queen of Heaven. But it was with the full knowledge and approval of our husbands that we made cakes in her image and poured out drink offerings to her.”

On every high, elevated hill you prepare your bed; you go up there to offer sacrifices.

The king ruined the high places east of Jerusalem, south of the Mount of Destruction, that King Solomon of Israel had built for the detestable Sidonian goddess Astarte, the detestable Moabite god Chemosh, and the horrible Ammonite god Milcom.

Bel kneels down, Nebo bends low. Their images weigh down animals and beasts. Your heavy images are burdensome to tired animals.

For at that time everyone will get rid of the silver and gold idols your hands sinfully made.

because they have done evil in my sight and have angered me from the time their ancestors left Egypt right up to this very day!’”

“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 who practice ritual sex under the oaks and every green tree, who slaughter children near the streams under the rocky overhangs.

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.

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.

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.’

They made him angry with their pagan shrines, and made him jealous with their idols.

For you must not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.

You have sinned more than all who came before you. You went and angered me by making other gods, formed out of metal; you have completely disregarded me.

They are worthless, mere objects to be mocked. When the time comes to punish them, they will be destroyed.

Remember what I accomplished in antiquity! Truly I am God, I have no peer; I am God, and there is none like me,

King Asa also removed Maacah his grandmother from her position as queen mother because she had made a loathsome Asherah pole. Asa cut down her Asherah pole and crushed and burned it in the Kidron Valley.

He removed the male cultic prostitutes from the land and got rid of all the disgusting idols his ancestors had made.

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.

The worthless idols will be completely eliminated.

“So the time will certainly come when I will punish the idols of Babylon. Her whole land will be put to shame. All her mortally wounded will collapse in her midst.

So then, my dear friends, flee from idolatry.

Those who make them will end up like them, as will everyone who trusts in them.

They consult their wooden idols, and their diviner’s staff answers with an oracle. The wind of prostitution blows them astray; they commit spiritual adultery against their God.

Little children, guard yourselves from idols.

We know our noisy worship of false gods on the hills and mountains did not help us. We know that the Lord our God is the only one who can deliver Israel.

This is what the sovereign Lord says: Because your lust was poured out and your nakedness was uncovered in your prostitution with your lovers, and because of all your detestable idols, and because of the blood of your children you have given to them,

Those who trust in idols will turn back and be utterly humiliated, those who say to metal images, ‘You are our gods.’”

You must not make gods of silver alongside me, nor make gods of gold for yourselves.

He removed the foreign gods and images from the Lord’s temple and all the altars he had built on the hill of the Lord’s temple and in Jerusalem; he threw them outside the city.

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 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.

The Lord is the only true God. He is the living God and the everlasting King. When he shows his anger the earth shakes. None of the nations can stand up to his fury.

They made an image of a calf at Horeb, and worshiped a metal idol.Who can adequately recount the Lord’s mighty acts, or relate all his praiseworthy deeds?They traded their majestic God for the image of an ox that eats grass.They rejected the God who delivered them, the one who performed great deeds in Egypt,

They have quickly turned aside from the way that I commanded them – they have made for themselves a molten calf and have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, which brought you up from the land of Egypt.’”

“You shall have no other gods before me.

I am the Lord! That is my name! I will not share my glory with anyone else, or the praise due me with idols.

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!’

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.

Those who empty out gold from a purse and weigh out silver on the scale hire a metalsmith, who makes it into a god. They then bow down and worship it.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.

Has a nation ever changed its gods (even though they are not really gods at all)? But my people have exchanged me, their glorious God, for a god that cannot help them at all!

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.”

Can people make their own gods? No, what they make are not gods at all.”

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.They are worthless, objects to be ridiculed. When the time comes to punish them, they will be destroyed.

To whom can you compare God? To what image can you liken him?A craftsman casts an idol; a metalsmith overlays it with gold and forges silver chains for it.“Speak kindly to Jerusalem, and tell her that her time of warfare is over, that her punishment is completed. For the Lord has made her pay double for all her sins.”To make a contribution one selects wood that will not rot; he then seeks a skilled craftsman to make an idol that will not fall over.

They have burned the gods of the nations, for they are not really gods, but only the product of human hands manufactured from wood and stone. That is why the Assyrians could destroy them.

“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,

Do not turn to idols, and you must not make for yourselves gods of cast metal. I am the Lord your God.

There you will worship gods made by human hands – wood and stone that can neither see, hear, eat, nor smell.

You must not go after other gods, those of the surrounding peoples,

They sacrificed to demons, not God, to gods they had not known; to new gods who had recently come along, gods your ancestors had not known about.

“See now that I, indeed I, am he!” says the Lord, “and there is no other god besides me. I kill and give life, I smash and I heal, and none can resist my power.

For all the gods of the nations are worthless, but the Lord made the sky.

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.

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.

“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.

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!”

In all your dwellings, the cities will be laid waste and the high places ruined so that your altars will be laid waste and ruined, your idols will be shattered and demolished, your incense altars will be broken down, and your works wiped out.

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.”

“‘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.

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.”

Am I saying that idols or food sacrificed to them amount to anything?and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea,No, I mean that what the pagans sacrifice is to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be partners with demons.

Formerly when you did not know God, you were enslaved to beings that by nature are not gods at all.

The rest of humanity, who had not been killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, so that they did not stop worshiping demons and idols made of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood – idols that cannot see or hear or walk about.

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.”

Outside are the dogs and the sorcerers and the sexually immoral, and the murderers, and the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood!

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.”

They worshiped their idols, which became a snare to them.

All who worship idols are ashamed, those who boast about worthless idols. All the gods bow down before him.

I will remove your idols and sacred pillars from your midst; you will no longer worship what your own hands made.

The Lord has issued a decree against you: “Your dynasty will come to an end. I will destroy the idols and images in the temples of your gods. I will desecrate your grave – because you are accursed!”

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?The one who says to wood, ‘Wake up!’ is as good as dead – he who says to speechless stone, ‘Awake!’ Can it give reliable guidance? It is overlaid with gold and silver; it has no life’s breath inside it.

But when they got up early the following day, Dagon was again lying on the ground before the ark of the Lord. The head of Dagon and his two hands were sheared off and were lying at the threshold. Only Dagon’s body was left intact.

You should not turn aside after empty things that can’t profit and can’t deliver, since they are empty.

Elijah approached all the people and said, “How long are you going to be paralyzed by indecision? If the Lord is the true God, then follow him, but if Baal is, follow him!” But the people did not say a word.

They rejected his rules, the covenant he had made with their ancestors, and the laws he had commanded them to obey. They paid allegiance to worthless idols, and so became worthless to the Lord. They copied the practices of the surrounding nations in blatant disregard of the Lord’s command.

They have burned the gods of the nations, for they are not really gods, but only the product of human hands manufactured from wood and stone. That is why the Assyrians could destroy them.

How blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord and does not seek help from the proud or from liars!

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.”If after all there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as there are many gods and many lords),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.

Formerly when you did not know God, you were enslaved to beings that by nature are not gods at all.But now that you have come to know God (or rather to be known by God), how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless basic forces? Do you want to be enslaved to them all over again?

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.

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 since we are God’s offspring, we should not think the deity is like gold or silver or stone, an image made by human skill and imagination.

Be careful not to allow anyone to captivate you through an empty, deceitful philosophy that is according to human traditions and the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

And also on that day,” says the Lord who rules over all, “I will remove the names of the idols from the land and they will never again be remembered. Moreover, I will remove the prophets and the unclean spirit from the land.

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.