13 Bible Verses about Serving One's Own Gods

And Joshua said to all the people, "Thus says Yahweh the God of Israel: '{Long ago} your ancestors--Terah the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor--lived beyond the river, and they served other gods.

"So now, revere Yahweh and serve him in sincerity and faithfulness; remove the gods that your ancestors served beyond the river and in Egypt, and serve Yahweh.

But if it is bad in your eyes to serve Yahweh, choose for yourselves today whom you want to serve, whether it is the gods that your ancestors served beyond the river, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you [are] living; but as for me and my household, we will serve Yahweh."

And the mariners were afraid, and each cried out to his god. And they threw the {contents} that were in the merchant ship into the sea to lighten it for them. And [meanwhile] Jonah went down into the hold of the vessel and lay down and fell asleep.

And the captain of the ship approached him and said to him, "Why are you {sound asleep}? Get up! Call on your god! Perhaps [your] god will take notice of us and we won't perish!"

And the Lord gave Jehoiakim the king of Judah into his hand and {some of} of the utensils of the temple of God, and he brought them [to] the land of Shinar [to] the temple of his gods, and he brought the utensils to {the treasury} of his gods.

Thus he did for all of his foreign wives, offering incense and sacrificing to their gods.

Then the cities of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem will go and cry out to the gods [to] whom they [are] making smoke offerings, but they will certainly not save them in the time of their trouble.

Yahweh they were fearing, but their gods they were serving, according to the customs of the nations from which they were deported.

So these nations were fearing Yahweh, but they were serving their idols, as were their children and their children's children; as their ancestors did, they [are] doing until this day.

The servants of the king of Aram said to him, "Their gods [are] gods of the mountains, therefore they were stronger than we. Let us fight with them in the plain; surely we will be stronger than they.

He will not pay respect to the gods of his ancestors, or to [the] darling of women, and not to any god will he pay respect, for he will consider himself great over all [gods].

whose end [is] destruction, whose God [is] the stomach, and [whose] glory [is] in their shame, the ones who think on earthly things.