33 Bible Verses about Syncretism

You are to have no other gods but me.

You are to have no other gods but me.

Let the fear of the Lord your God be in your hearts, and be his servants, taking your oaths by his name. Do not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples round about you; For the Lord your God who is with you is a God who will not let his honour be given to another; or the wrath of the Lord will be burning against you, causing your destruction from the face of the earth.

So now, go in fear of the Lord, and be his servants with true hearts: put away the gods worshipped by your fathers across the River and in Egypt, and be servants of the Lord. And if it seems evil to you to be the servants of the Lord, make the decision this day whose servants you will be: of the gods whose servants your fathers were across the River, or of the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living: but I and my house will be the servants of the Lord.

And Elijah came near to all the people and said, How long will you go on balancing between two opinions? if the Lord is God, then give worship to him; but if Baal, give worship to him. And the people said not a word in answer.

So see that you make no agreement with the people of the land, and do not go after their gods, or take part in their offerings, or be guests at their feasts, Or take their daughters for your sons; for when their daughters give worship before their gods, they will make your sons take part with them.

When the Lord your God takes you into the land where you are going, which is to be your heritage, and has sent out the nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and stronger than you; And when the Lord has given them up into your hands and you have overcome them, give them up to complete destruction: make no agreement with them, and have no mercy on them: Do not take wives or husbands from among them; do not give your daughters to their sons, or take their daughters for your sons.read more.
For through them your sons will be turned from me to the worship of other gods: and the Lord will be moved to wrath against you and send destruction on you quickly. But this is what you are to do to them: their altars are to be pulled down and their pillars broken, and their holy trees cut down and their images burned with fire. For you are a holy people to the Lord your God: marked out by the Lord your God to be his special people out of all the nations on the face of the earth.

If the agreement of the Lord your God, which was given to you by his orders, is broken, and you become the servants of other gods and give them worship, then the wrath of the Lord will be burning against you, and you will quickly be cut off from the good land which he has given you.

Then Samuel said to all Israel, If with all your hearts you would come back to the Lord, then put away all the strange gods and the Astartes from among you, and let your hearts be turned to the Lord, and be servants to him only: and he will make you safe from the hands of the Philistines.

Because they have given me up, and made this place a strange place, burning perfumes in it to other gods, of whom they and their fathers and the kings of Judah had no knowledge; and they have made this place full of the blood of those who have done no wrong; And they have put up the high places of the Baal, burning their sons in the fire; a thing which was not ordered by me, and it was never in my mind:

So to this day they go on in their old ways, not worshipping the Lord or keeping his orders or his ways or the law and the rule which the Lord gave to the children of Jacob, to whom he gave the name Israel; And the Lord made an agreement with them and gave them orders, saying, You are to have no other gods; you are not to give worship to them or be their servants or make them offerings: But the Lord, who took you out of the land of Egypt with his great power and his outstretched arm, he is your God, to whom you are to give worship and make offerings:read more.
And the rules and the orders and the law which he put in writing for you, you are to keep and do for ever; you are to have no other gods. And you are to keep in memory the agreement which I have made with you; and you are to have no other gods. And you are to give worship to the Lord your God; for it is he who will give you salvation from the hands of all who are against you. But they gave no attention, but went on in their old way. So these nations, worshipping the Lord, still were servants to the images they had made; their children and their children's children did the same; as their fathers did, so do they, to this day.

Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king; for fifty-five years he was ruling in Jerusalem; and his mother's name was Hephzi-bah. He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, copying the disgusting ways of those nations whom the Lord had sent out before the children of Israel. He put up again the high places which had been pulled down by Hezekiah his father; he made altars for Baal, and an Asherah, as Ahab, king of Israel, had done; he was a worshipper and servant of all the stars of heaven.read more.
And he put up altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, In Jerusalem will I put my name. And he put up altars for all the stars of heaven in the two outer squares of the house of the Lord. And he made his son go through the fire, and made use of secret arts and signs for reading the future; he gave positions to those who had control of spirits and to wonder-workers; he did much evil in the eyes of the Lord, moving him to wrath. He put the image of Asherah which he had made in the house of which the Lord had said to David and to Solomon his son, In this house, and in Jerusalem, the town which I have made mine out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my name for ever.

Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he was ruling for fifty-five years in Jerusalem. He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, copying the disgusting ways of the nations whom the Lord had sent out of the land before the children of Israel. For he put up again the high places which had been pulled down by his father Hezekiah; and he made altars for the Baals, and pillars of wood, and was a worshipper and servant of all the stars of heaven;read more.
And he made altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, In Jerusalem will my name be for ever. And he made altars for all the stars of heaven in the two outer squares of the house of the Lord. More than this, he made his children go through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom; and he made use of secret arts, and signs for reading the future, and unnatural powers, and gave positions to those who had control of spirits and to wonder-workers: he did much evil in the eyes of the Lord, moving him to wrath. And he put the image he had made in the house of God, the house of which God had said to David and to Solomon his son, In this house, and in Jerusalem, the town which I have made mine out of all the tribes of Israel, will I put my name for ever:

And he said to me, Go in and see the evil and disgusting things which they are doing here. So I went in and saw; and there every sort of living thing which goes flat on the earth, and unclean beasts, and all the images of the children of Israel, were pictured round about on the wall. And before them seventy of the responsible men of the children of Israel had taken their places, every man with a vessel for burning perfumes in his hand, and in the middle of them was Jaazaniah, the son of Shaphan; and a cloud of smoke went up from the burning perfume.read more.
And he said to me, Son of man, have you seen what the responsible men of the children of Israel do in the dark, every man in his room of pictured images? for they say, The Lord does not see us; the Lord has gone away from the land. Then he said to me, You will see even more disgusting things which they do. Then he took me to the door of the way into the Lord's house looking to the north; and there women were seated weeping for Tammuz. Then he said to me, Have you seen this, O son of man? you will see even more disgusting things than these. And he took me into the inner square of the Lord's house, and at the door of the Temple of the Lord, between the covered way and the altar, there were about twenty-five men with their backs turned to the Temple of the Lord and their faces turned to the east; and they were worshipping the sun, turning to the east.

These are the words of the Lord: What evil have your fathers seen in me that they have gone far from me, and, walking after what is false, have become false?

When you have come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you, do not take as your example the disgusting ways of those nations. Let there not be seen among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter go through the fire, or anyone using secret arts, or a maker of strange sounds, or a reader of signs, or any wonder-worker, Or anyone using secret force on people, or putting questions to a spirit, or having secret knowledge, or going to the dead for directions.read more.
For all who do such things are disgusting to the Lord; and because of these disgusting things the Lord your God is driving them out before you. You are to be upright in heart before the Lord your God.

And they went against his rules, and the agreement which he made with their fathers, and his laws which he gave them; they gave themselves up to things without sense or value, and became foolish like the nations round them, of whom the Lord had said, Do not as they do. And turning their backs on all the orders which the Lord had given them, they made for themselves images of metal, and the image of Asherah, worshipping all the stars of heaven and becoming servants to Baal. And they made their sons and their daughters go through the fire, and they made use of secret arts and unnatural powers, and gave themselves up to doing evil in the eyes of the Lord, till he was moved to wrath.

For you, O Lord, have given up your people, the family of Jacob, because they are full of the evil ways of the east, and make use of secret arts like the Philistines, and are friends with the children of strange countries.

And my hand will be stretched out on Judah and on all the people of Jerusalem, cutting off the name of the Baal from this place, and the name of the false priests, And the worshippers of the army of heaven on the house-tops, and the Lord's worshippers who take oaths by Milcom,

If there is any man or woman among you, in any of the towns which the Lord your God gives you, who does evil in the eyes of the Lord your God, sinning against his agreement, By becoming a servant of other gods and worshipping them or the sun or the moon or all the stars of heaven, against my orders; If word of this comes to your ears, then let this thing be looked into with care, and if there is no doubt that it is true, and such evil has been done in Israel;read more.
Then you are to take the man or woman who has done the evil to the public place of your town, and they are to be stoned with stones till they are dead. On the word of two or three witnesses, a man may be given the punishment of death; but he is not to be put to death on the word of one witness. The hands of the witnesses will be the first to put him to death, and after them the hands of all the people. So you are to put away the evil from among you.

Then let the potter's bottle be broken before the eyes of the men who have gone with you, And say to them, This is what the Lord of armies has said: Even so will this people and this town be broken by me, as a potter's bottle is broken and may not be put together again: and the bodies of the dead will be put in the earth in Topheth, till there is no more room. This is what I will do to this place, says the Lord, and to its people, making this town like Topheth:read more.
And the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah, which they have made unclean, will be like the place of Topheth, even all the houses on whose roofs perfumes have been burned to all the army of heaven, and drink offerings drained out to other gods.

Take up the cause against your mother, take it up, for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband; let her put away her loose ways from her face, and her false ways from between her breasts; For fear that I may take away her robe from her, making her uncovered as in the day of her birth; making her like a waste place and a dry land, causing her death through need of water. And I will have no mercy on her children, for they are the children of her loose ways.read more.
For their mother has been untrue; she who gave them birth has done things of shame, for she said, I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my linen, my oil and my wine. For this cause I will put thorns in her road, building up a wall round her so that she may not go on her way. And if she goes after her lovers she will not overtake them; if she makes search for them she will not see them; then will she say, I will go back to my first husband, for then it was better for me than now. For she had no knowledge that it was I who gave her the grain and the wine and the oil, increasing her silver and gold which they gave to the Baal. So I will take away again my grain in its time and my wine, and I will take away my wool and my linen with which her body might have been covered. And now I will make her shame clear before the eyes of her lovers, and no one will take her out of my hand. And I will put an end to all her joy, her feasts, her new moons, and her Sabbaths, and all her regular meetings. And I will make waste her vines and her fig-trees, of which she has said, These are the payments which my lovers have made to me; and I will make them a waste of trees, and the beasts of the field will take them for food. And I will give her punishment for the days of the Baals, to whom she has been burning perfumes, when she made herself fair with her nose-rings and her jewels, and went after her lovers, giving no thought to me, says the Lord.

And when the people saw what Paul had done, they said in a loud voice, in the language of Lycaonia, The gods have come down to us in the form of men. And they gave the name of Jupiter to Barnabas, and to Paul that of Mercury, because he was the chief talker. And the priest of the image of Jupiter, which was before the town, took oxen and flowers to the doors of the town, and was about to make an offering with the people.

Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was troubled, for he saw all the town full of images of the gods. So he had discussions in the Synagogue with the Jews and God-fearing Gentiles, and every day in the market-place with those who were there. And some of those who were supporters of the theories of the Epicureans and the Stoics, had a meeting with him. And some said, What is this talker of foolish words saying? And others, He seems to be a preacher of strange gods: because he was preaching of Jesus and his coming back from the dead.read more.
And they took him to Mars' Hill, saying, Will you make clear to us what is this new teaching of yours? For you seem to us to say strange things, and we have a desire to get the sense of them. (Now all the Athenians and the men from other lands who come there were giving all their time to talking or hearing of anything new.) And Paul got to his feet on Mars' Hill and said, O men of Athens, I see that you are overmuch given to fear of the gods. For when I came by, I was looking at the things to which you give worship, and I saw an altar with this writing on it, TO THE GOD OF WHOM THERE IS NO KNOWLEDGE. Now, what you, without knowledge, give worship to, I make clear to you.

But some of the Jews who went from place to place driving out evil spirits, took it on themselves to make use of the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, I give you orders, by Jesus, whom Paul is preaching. And there were seven sons of a man named Sceva, a Jew and a chief priest, who did this. And the evil spirit, answering, said to them, I have knowledge of Jesus, and of Paul, but who are you?read more.
And the man in whom the evil spirit was, jumping on them, was stronger than the two of them, and overcame them, so that they went running from that house, wounded and without their clothing.

Do not be turned away by different strange teachings, because it is good for your hearts to be made strong by grace, and not by meats, which were of no profit to those who took so much trouble over them.

It is not possible for you, at the same time, to take the cup of the Lord and the cup of evil spirits; you may not take part in the table of the Lord and the table of evil spirits.

But now that you have come to have knowledge of God, or more truly, God has knowledge of you, how is it that you go back again to the poor and feeble first things, desiring to be servants to them again? You keep days, and months, and fixed times, and years.

Let no man take your reward from you by consciously making little of himself and giving worship to angels; having his thoughts fixed on the things which he has seen, being foolishly lifted up in his natural mind,

The Lord, the King of Israel, even the Lord of armies who has taken up his cause, says, I am the first and the last, and there is no God but me.

Give ear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord: And the Lord your God is to be loved with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

You are my witnesses, says the Lord, and my servant whom I have taken for myself: so that you may see and have faith in me, and that it may be clear to you that I am he; before me there was no God formed, and there will not be after me. I, even I, am the Lord; and there is no saviour but me. I gave the word, and made it clear, and there was no strange god among you: for this reason you are my witnesses, says the Lord.

So, then, as to the question of taking food offered to images, we are certain that an image is nothing in the world, and that there is no God but one. For though there are those who have the name of gods, in heaven or on earth, as there are a number of gods and a number of lords, There is for us only one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we are for him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we have our being through him.