28 Bible Verses about Altars

He built an altar for Baal in a temple for Baal that he constructed in Samaria.

So they took the ox that was given to them, prepared it, and called on the name of Baal from early morning until noon. "Baal! Answer us!" they cried. But there was no response. Nobody answered. So they kept on dancing around the altar that they had made.

By this, then, Jacob's guilt will be atoned for, and this will be the full harvest that comes from the removal of his sin: when he makes all the altar stones like pulverized chalkstones, no Asherah poles or incense altars will be left standing.

a people who continually provoke me to my face; they keep sacrificing in gardens and waving their hands over stone altars;

"The more altars Ephraim builds for sin, the more altars there will be for sin.

"The priest is then to put some blood on the horn of the altar that is near the Tent of Meeting as an incense of pleasing aroma in the LORD's presence. He is to pour the rest of the bull's blood for a burnt offering at the base of the altar that is at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.

Solomon made all the furnishings that were placed in the LORD's Temple, including the golden altar and the golden table on which the bread of the Presence was placed,

the altar of gold, anointing oil, aromatic incense, the screen for the doorway to the tent,

"You are to make an altar for burning incense. You are to make it of acacia wood.

He finished the Temple by overlaying it entirely with gold, including overlaying with gold the whole altar that was by the inner sanctuary.

"Here are the measurements of the altar in cubits that were a cubit and a handbreadth long: its base is a cubit long and a cubit wide, and its border around the edge at one handbreadth is to be the height of the altar.

You are to make an altar of earth for me, and you are to sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and peace offerings, your sheep, and your cattle. Everywhere I cause my name to be remembered, I'll come to you and bless you.

Then build an altar there to the LORD your God, an altar of stones that hasn't been worked with iron tools.

just the way Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded the Israelis in the Book of the Law of Moses: ""an altar of uncut stones that hasn't been worked with iron tools"" and they offered burnt offerings to the LORD on it, along with peace offerings.

set up an altar, and named it El-elohe-israel.

Later, God told Jacob, "Get up, move to Bethel, and live there. Build an altar to the God who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau."

Then let's get up and go to Bethel, where I'll build an altar to the God who answered me when I was in distress and who was with me on the road, wherever I went."

He built an altar there to God and named the place El Beth-el, because God had revealed himself there when he was fleeing from his brother.

The king demolished the rooftop altars on top of Ahaz's upper chamber that the kings of Judah had erected, as well as the altars that Manasseh had made in the two courts of the LORD's Temple. He pulverized them where they stood and cast their dust into the Kidron Brook.

The houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah will be polluted like Topheth, as will be all the houses on whose roofs people burned incense to all the host of heaven and poured out liquid offerings to other gods."'"

The Chaldeans who are fighting against this city will come, set this city on fire, and burn it along with the houses on whose roofs incense was burned to Baal and liquid offerings were poured out to other gods in order to provoke me.

So the leading men of the city ordered Joash, "Bring us that son of yours. He's going to die, because he tore down the altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah that stood beside it!"

He built an altar for Baal in a temple for Baal that he constructed in Samaria. Ahab also erected an Asherah, doing more to provoke the LORD God of Israel than all of the kings of Israel who had reigned before him.

He rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had destroyed. He erected altars for Baal, crafted an Asherah, just as King Ahab of Israel had done, and worshipped and served the stars of heaven.

Balaam told Balak, "Build for me here seven altars and prepare here for me seven bulls and seven rams."

So Balak took him to the field of Zophim, and from there to the top of Mount Pisgah, where he built seven altars and then offered a bull and a ram on each altar.

Balaam told Balak, "Build seven altars for me right here. Then prepare seven bulls and seven rams."

So Abram moved his tent and settled beside the oaks of Mamre that are by Hebron, where he built an altar to the LORD.

Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, "I'll give this land to your descendants." So Abram built an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him.

The two of them went on together and came to the place about which God had spoken. Abraham built an altar there, arranged the wood, tied up his son Isaac, and placed him on the altar on top of the wood.

Solomon also constructed a bronze altar 20 cubits long, 20 cubits wide, and ten cubits high.

Solomon also made these items for God's Temple: the golden altar, the tables for the Bread of the Presence,

Then Gideon went and prepared a young goat and unleavened bread from an ephah of flour. He put the meat in a basket and poured the broth into a pot, and brought them to the angel right under the oak tree. Then he made his offering. The angel, who was God, replied, "Take the meat and the unleavened bread and lay them on this boulder. Then pour out the broth." So he did that. The angel of the LORD extended the tip of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and unleavened bread. Fire broke out from inside the boulder, consuming the meat and unleavened bread. Then the angel of the LORD vanished in front of him.

So Manoah prepared a young goat and a grain offering and offered it on a boulder to the LORD, who kept on performing miracles while Manoah and his wife watched continually. When the burnt offering was engulfed in flames that sprang up from the altar toward heaven, the angel of the LORD ascended in the flame that came from the altar. When Manoah and his wife observed this, they collapsed on their faces to the ground.

and asked him, "Why has your majesty the king come to his servant?" David replied, "To purchase your threshing floor and to build an altar to the LORD, so the pestilence can be averted from the people."

built an altar to the LORD there, and presented burnt offerings and peace offerings. So the LORD answered David's prayers for the land and the pestilence on Israel was averted.

Rather, you are to tear down their altars, you are to smash their sacred pillars, and you are to cut down their sacred poles

This is what you are to do to them: tear down their altars, break their pillars, cut down their ritual pillars, and burn their carved idols in fire,

If a man acts deliberately against his neighbor, to kill him by treachery, you are to take him to die even if he's at my altar.

"Okay," Bathsheba replied. "I'll talk to the king for you." So Bathsheba went to talk to King Solomon for Adonijah. The king rose to meet her, bowed to her, and sat down on his throne. He ordered a throne be set in place for his mother. She sat on a throne to his right and told him, "I would like to make a minor request of you. Please don't refuse me." "What is your request, mother?" the king asked her. "I won't turn you down." read more.
So she asked him, "Give Abishag the Shunammite to your brother Adonijah as a wife." But King Solomon replied to his mother, "Why are you asking Abishag the Shunammite for Adonijah? Why not ask me to give up the kingdom for him, since he's my older brother, and why not ask for Abiathar the priest, and for Zeruiah's son Joab?" Then King Solomon took this oath in the name of the LORD: "May God do so to me, and more besides, if Adonijah hasn't endangered his life by bringing up this subject. Now therefore, as the LORD lives, who has established me and set me on the throne of my father David, and who has established a dynasty, just like he promised, Adonijah will surely be executed today." So King Solomon sent for Jehoiada's son Benaiah, who attacked and killed Adonijah. The king also told Abiathar the priest, "Go home to Anathoth. You deserve to die, but I won't kill you today, because you carried the ark of the Lord GOD before my father David and because you shared all the troubles that my father went through." So Solomon fired Abiathar as the LORD's priest, thus fulfilling the promise that the LORD had spoken in Shiloh concerning Eli's household. When Joab learned what had happened, he ran to the LORD's tent and grabbed hold of the horns of the altar, since Joab had supported Adonijah (though he had not supported Absalom). Somebody informed King Solomon, "Joab just ran to the LORD's tent and now he's standing beside the altar!" But Solomon ordered Jehoiada's son Benaiah, "Go kill him!" So Benaiah went into the LORD's tent and told Joab, "The king orders you to come out!" "No," Joab said, "I'd rather die here!" So Benaiah went and informed the king, "This is how Joab answered me." The king replied to him, "Do just what he asked. Kill him and bury him so that you may remove from me and from my father's household the guilt that Joab shed needlessly. The LORD will repay him for his bloodshed because, without my father David's consent he attacked and murdered two men more righteous and better than he, Ner's son Abner, the commander of Israel's army and Jether's son Amasa, commander of Judah's army. May their blood be repaid to Joab and to his descendants forever, and may there be peace shown from the LORD forever to David, to his descendants, to his household, and to his throne." Jehoiada's son Benaiah then approached Joab, attacked him, killed him, and had him buried at Joab's home in the wilderness.

Moses built an altar and named it "The LORD is My Banner."

So Moses wrote down all the words of the LORD. He got up early in the morning and built an altar with twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel at the base of the mountain.

"You are not to set up a sacred pole beside the altar of the LORD your God that you will build.

King Ahaz traveled to Damascus and met with King Tiglath-pileser of Assyria, where he observed the altar at Damascus. So King Ahaz sent a set of construction patterns of this altar to Uriah the priest. Uriah the priest built an altar, following the plans that King Ahaz had sent him from Damascus and finishing the altar before King Ahaz returned from Damascus. When the king returned from Damascus, as soon as he saw the altar, he approached it and offered sacrifices on it.

Inscribe on the stones plainly and distinctly all the words of this Law."

You are to make an altar of earth for me, and you are to sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and peace offerings, your sheep, and your cattle. Everywhere I cause my name to be remembered, I'll come to you and bless you. If you make an altar of stone for me, you must not build it of cut stones, because if you strike it with your chisel, you will profane it.

Afraid of Solomon, Adonijah also jumped up and headed straight for the horns of the altar. "Hey look!" somebody informed Solomon. "Adonijah is terrified of King Solomon! He's gone out, grabbed hold of the horns of the altar, and now he's begging King Solomon, "Swear to me that you won't put your servant to death with a sword!'"

Then Joshua built an altar to the LORD God of Israel, on Mount Ebal, just the way Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded the Israelis in the Book of the Law of Moses: ""an altar of uncut stones that hasn't been worked with iron tools"" and they offered burnt offerings to the LORD on it, along with peace offerings.

and build an altar to the LORD your God on top of this stronghold in an orderly manner. Then take the second bull and offer it as a burnt offering using the wood from the Asherah that you'll be cutting down." So Gideon went with ten men who were his servants and did just what the LORD had told him to do, though he did it at night because he was too afraid of his father's family and the leading men of the city to do it during the day.

Then, on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, he went up to burn incense on the altar that he had set up in Bethel, thus beginning the festival that he had made up out of his own heart for the Israelis.

"You are to make the altar of acacia wood. It is to be five cubits long and five cubits wide; the altar is to be a square, and it is to be three cubits high. You are to make horns on its four corners. Its corners are to be of one piece with it, and you are to overlay it with bronze. You are to make pans for removing its ashes, shovels, bowls, forks, and fire-pans for it, and you are to make all its utensils of bronze. read more.
You are to make a lattice, a netting of bronze for it, and you are to make four bronze rings on the netting at its four corners. You are to put it under the ledge of the altar, so that the netting extends halfway up the altar. You are to make poles for the altar, poles of acacia wood, and you are to overlay them with bronze. The poles for it are to be put through the rings, so the poles are on the two sides of the altar when it's carried. You are to make it hollow out of boards just as it was shown you on the mountain, that's how they are to make it."

"You are to make an altar for burning incense. You are to make it of acacia wood. It is to be a square, one cubit long and one cubit wide, and it is to be two cubits high, with its horns of one piece with it. You are to overlay it with pure gold, its top, its sides all around, and its horns, and you are to make a molding of gold all around it. read more.
"You are to make two gold rings for it under its molding. You are to make them on its two opposite sides, and they are to be holders for poles by which to carry it. You are to make the poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold. You are to put the altar in front of the curtain that is over the Ark of the Testimony, in front of the Mercy Seat that is over the Testimony where I'll meet with you.

He would return to Ramah because his house was there, and judged Israel from there. He also built an altar to the LORD there.

In response, Isaac built an altar there and called on the name of the LORD. He also pitched his tents there and his servants dug a well.

After they arrived at an area of the Jordan River that is in the land of Canaan, the descendants of Reuben, the descendants of Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh constructed an altar there by the Jordan River, and it was very large.

Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and offered burnt offerings on it from every clean animal and every clean bird.

You are not to ascend to my altar on steps, so that your nakedness may not be exposed on it.'"

You are to make an altar of earth for me, and you are to sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and peace offerings, your sheep, and your cattle. Everywhere I cause my name to be remembered, I'll come to you and bless you.

The next day, the people got up early, built an altar, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings.

a people who continually provoke me to my face; they keep sacrificing in gardens and waving their hands over stone altars;

Then Jozadak's son Jeshua and his brothers got up, along with Shealtiel's son Zerubbabel and his brothers. They built an altar of the God of Israel in order to offer burnt offerings, as prescribed by the Law of Moses, the man of God. Even though they feared the people in neighboring regions, they rebuilt the altar where it had stood before. They offered burnt offerings on it to the LORD burnt offerings both in the morning and in the evening.

For as I was walking around and looking closely at the objects you worship, I even found an altar with this written on it: "To an unknown god.' So I am telling you about the unknown object you worship.

the bronze altar and the bronze lattice for it, its poles, all its furnishings, the basin and its base,

You are to make horns on its four corners. Its corners are to be of one piece with it, and you are to overlay it with bronze.

a people who continually provoke me to my face; they keep sacrificing in gardens and waving their hands over stone altars;

After they arrived at an area of the Jordan River that is in the land of Canaan, the descendants of Reuben, the descendants of Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh constructed an altar there by the Jordan River, and it was very large. When the Israelis heard about it, they announced, "Look here, the descendants of Reuben, the descendants of Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh have constructed an altar in Canaan's frontier district of the Jordan River, on the side apportioned to the Israelis." When the Israelis heard that announcement, the entire community of the Israelis gathered together at Shiloh in preparation for war. read more.
Then the Israelis sent a delegation to the descendants of Reuben, the descendants of Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh in the land of Gilead. They sent Eleazar's son Phinehas the priest, and ten officials with him (one for each of the tribal families of Israel, each one of them a family leader among the tribes of Israel). They approached the descendants of Reuben, the descendants of Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh in the land of Gilead and told them: "This is what the entire community of the LORD has to say: "What is this treacherous act by which you have acted deceitfully against the God of Israel by turning away from following the LORD today, and by building yourselves an altar today, so you can rebel against the LORD? Isn't the evil that happened at Peor enough for us, from which we have yet to be completely cleansed even to this point, and because of which a plague came upon the community of the LORD? Now then, are you turning away from following the LORD today? If you rebel against the LORD today, by tomorrow he will be angry with the entire community of Israel. If the land of your inheritance remains unclean, then cross back over into the land that the LORD possesses, and receive an inheritance among us. Don't rebel against the LORD and against us by constructing an altar for yourselves besides the altar of the LORD our God. Didn't Zerah's son Achan act treacherously with respect to the things banned by God, and as a result God became angry at the entire community of Israel? And that man was not the only one to die because of his iniquity.'" The descendants of Reuben, the descendants of Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh answered the officials of the tribes of Israel, "The God of gods, the LORD, the God of gods, the LORD is the one who knows! And may Israel itself be aware that if this was an act of rebellion or an act of treachery against the LORD, may he not deliver us today! If we have built an altar for ourselves intended to turn us away from following the LORD, or to offer burnt offerings, grain offerings, or peace offerings on it, may the LORD himself demand an accounting from us! But we did this because we were concerned for a reason, since we thought, "Sometime in the future your descendants may say to our descendants, "What do you have in common with the LORD, the God of Israel? The LORD has established the Jordan River to be a territorial border between us and you. Descendants of Reuben and descendants of Gad have no allotment from the LORD." So your descendants may cause our descendants to stop fearing the LORD.' "That's why we said, "Let's build an altar for ourselves, not for burnt offerings or sacrifice, but instead it will serve as a reminder between us and you and between our generations after us, that we are to serve the LORD with our burnt offerings, sacrifices, and peace offerings. That way your descendants will not say to our descendants in the future, "You have no allotment from the LORD."' "That's also why we said, "It may be if they say these things to us and to our descendants in the future, so we will respond, "Look at this replica of the altar of the LORD that our ancestors made, not for burnt offerings or sacrifice, but rather as a reminder between us and you. May we never rebel against the LORD today by building an altar for burnt offerings, for grain offerings, or for sacrifice to replace the altar of the LORD our God which stands before his Tent."'"

So Manoah prepared a young goat and a grain offering and offered it on a boulder to the LORD, who kept on performing miracles while Manoah and his wife watched continually.

The angel, who was God, replied, "Take the meat and the unleavened bread and lay them on this boulder. Then pour out the broth." So he did that. The angel of the LORD extended the tip of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and unleavened bread. Fire broke out from inside the boulder, consuming the meat and unleavened bread. Then the angel of the LORD vanished in front of him.