20 Bible Verses about Abandoning Idols

You shall burn the carved and sculpted images of their gods in the fire. You shall not covet the silver or gold that is on them, nor take it for yourselves, so that you will not be ensnared by it [in a deadly trap], for it is an abomination (repulsive) to the Lord your God.

Everywhere you live, the cities will become waste and the high places will become deserted, so that your altars may bear their guilt and become deserted, your idols may be broken and destroyed, your incense altars [for sun-worship] may be cut down, and your works may be blotted out.

He expelled the male cult prostitutes (sodomites) from the land and removed all the idols that his fathers [Solomon, Rehoboam, and Abijam] had made.

He removed the high places [of pagan worship], broke down the images (memorial stones) and cut down the Asherim. He also crushed to pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the Israelites had burned incense to it; and it was called Nehushtan [a bronze sculpture].

And he got rid of the horses that the kings of Judah had given [in worship] to the sun at the entrance of the house of the Lord, by the chamber of Nathan-melech the official, which was in the annex; and he burned the chariots of the sun.

Moreover, Josiah removed the mediums and the soothsayers and the teraphim (household gods) and the idols and all the repulsive things that were seen in Judah and in Jerusalem, so that he might fulfill the words of the law written in the book which Hilkiah the priest found in the house (temple) of the Lord.

Also he will carry off to Egypt their [Syrian] gods with their cast images and their precious and costly treasure of silver and of gold, and he will refrain from waging war against the king of the North for some years.

For behold, they will go away because of devastation and destruction;
Egypt will gather them up, Memphis will bury them.
Weeds will take over their treasures of silver;
Thorns will grow in their tents.

All her idols shall be broken in pieces,
All her earnings [from her idolatry] shall be burned with fire,
And all her images I shall make desolate;
For from the earnings of a prostitute she collected them,
And to the earnings of a prostitute they shall return.

“I will also cut off your carved images
And your sacred pillars from among you,
So that you will no longer worship and bow down
To the work of your hands.

The Lord has given a command concerning you [O king of Nineveh]:
“Your name will no longer be perpetuated.
I will cut off the carved idols and cast images
From the temple of your gods;
I will prepare your grave,
For you are vile and unworthy.”

The Philistines abandoned their [pagan] idols there, so David and his men took them away [to be burned].

In that day men will throw away to the moles and to the bats
Their idols of silver and their idols of gold,
Which they made for themselves [as objects] to worship,

And you will defile your carved images overlaid with silver, and your cast images plated with gold. You will scatter them like a bloodstained cloth, and will say to them, “Be gone!”

For in that day every man will reject and throw away his idols of silver and his idols of gold [in disgust], which your own hands have sinfully made for you.

“Therefore behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord,
“When I will judge and punish the idols [of Babylon],
And throughout her land the mortally wounded will groan.”

“Therefore behold (listen carefully), the days are coming
When I will judge and punish the idols of Babylon;
Her whole land will be perplexed and shamed,
And all her slain will fall in her midst.

“Now look! Here comes a troop of riders, horsemen in pairs.”
And one said, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon;
And all the carved images of her gods are shattered on the ground.”

‘Thus says the Lord God,
“I will also destroy the idols
And I will put an end to the images in Memphis;
There will no longer be a prince of the land of Egypt.
And I will put fear in the land of Egypt.

“In that day,” declares the Lord of hosts, “I will cut off the names of the idols from the land, and they will no longer be remembered. I will also remove the [false] prophets and the unclean spirit from the land.