At that point, the king got some advice and made two golden calves and said to the people, “It is too difficult for you to go up to Jerusalem. Behold, your gods, O Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt.”
They have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them. They have made for themselves a molded calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed to it, and said, ‘This is your god, O Israel, which has brought you up from the land of Egypt.’ ”
You shall defile also your graven images overlaid with silver, and your molded images ornamented with gold. You shall scatter them as an impure thing, and say to them, “Be gone!”
Assemble yourselves and come; draw near together, you fugitives of the nations. They have no knowledge who set up the wood of their carved image, and pray to a god that cannot save.
Silver spread into plates is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, the work of the workman and of the hands of the founder; blue and purple are their clothing; they all are the work of skilled men.
Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold, whose height was sixty cubits and its width six cubits. He set it up in the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon.
And now they continue sinning and have made a cast image for themselves, idols of their silver, according to their understanding; all of them the work of craftsmen. They say of them, “Those who sacrifice are kissing calves!”
“Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to suppose that the Deity is like gold or silver or stone or an engraved work of art or an image of the reflection of man.