33 Bible Verses about Syncretism

Do not have other gods besides Me.

Do not have other gods besides Me.

Fear Yahweh your God, worship Him, and take your oaths in His name. Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you, for the Lord your God, who is among you, is a jealous God. Otherwise, the Lord your God will become angry with you and wipe you off the face of the earth.

“Therefore, fear the Lord and worship Him in sincerity and truth. Get rid of the gods your fathers worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and worship Yahweh. But if it doesn’t please you to worship Yahweh, choose for yourselves today the one you will worship: the gods your fathers worshiped beyond the Euphrates River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living. As for me and my family, we will worship Yahweh.”

Then Elijah approached all the people and said, “How long will you hesitate between two opinions? If Yahweh is God, follow Him. But if Baal, follow him.” But the people didn’t answer him a word.

“Do not make a treaty with the inhabitants of the land, or else when they prostitute themselves with their gods and sacrifice to their gods, they will invite you, and you will eat their sacrifices. Then you will take some of their daughters as brides for your sons. Their daughters will prostitute themselves with their gods and cause your sons to prostitute themselves with their gods.

“When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess, and He drives out many nations before you—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and powerful than you— and when the Lord your God delivers them over to you and you defeat them, you must completely destroy them. Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy. Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, read more.
because they will turn your sons away from Me to worship other gods. Then the Lord’s anger will burn against you, and He will swiftly destroy you. Instead, this is what you are to do to them: tear down their altars, smash their sacred pillars, cut down their Asherah poles, and burn up their carved images. For you are a holy people belonging to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be His own possession out of all the peoples on the face of the earth.

If you break the covenant of the Lord your God, which He commanded you, and go and worship other gods, and bow down to them, the Lord’s anger will burn against you, and you will quickly disappear from this good land He has given you.”

Samuel told them, “If you are returning to the Lord with all your heart, get rid of the foreign gods and the Ashtoreths that are among you, dedicate yourselves to the Lord, and worship only Him. Then He will rescue you from the hand of the Philistines.”

because they have abandoned Me and made this a foreign place. They have burned incense in it to other gods that they, their fathers, and the kings of Judah have never known. They have filled this place with the blood of the innocent. They have built high places to Baal on which to burn their children in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, something I have never commanded or mentioned; I never entertained the thought.

They are still practicing the former customs to this day. None of them fear the Lord or observe their statutes and ordinances, the law and commandments the Lord commanded the descendants of Jacob. He had renamed him Israel. The Lord made a covenant with them and commanded them, “Do not fear other gods; do not bow down to them; do not serve them; do not sacrifice to them. Instead fear the Lord, who brought you from the land of Egypt with great power and an outstretched arm. You are to bow down to Him, and you are to sacrifice to Him. read more.
You are to be careful always to observe the statutes, the ordinances, the law, and the commandments He wrote for you; do not fear other gods. Do not forget the covenant that I have made with you. Do not fear other gods, but fear the Lord your God, and He will deliver you from the hand of all your enemies.” However, they would not listen but continued practicing their former customs. These nations feared the Lord but also served their idols. Their children and grandchildren continue doing as their fathers did until today.

Manasseh was 12 years old when he became king and reigned 55 years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hephzibah. He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight, imitating the detestable practices of the nations that the Lord had dispossessed before the Israelites. He rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had destroyed and reestablished the altars for Baal. He made an Asherah, as King Ahab of Israel had done; he also worshiped the whole heavenly host and served them. read more.
He built altars in the Lord’s temple, where the Lord had said, “Jerusalem is where I will put My name.” He built altars to the whole heavenly host in both courtyards of the Lord’s temple. He made his son pass through the fire, practiced witchcraft and divination, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did a great amount of evil in the Lord’s sight, provoking Him. Manasseh set up the carved image of Asherah, which he made, in the temple that the Lord had spoken about to David and his son Solomon, “I will establish My name forever in this temple and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel.

Manasseh was 12 years old when he became king and reigned 55 years in Jerusalem. He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight, imitating the detestable practices of the nations that the Lord had dispossessed before the Israelites. He rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had torn down and reestablished the altars for the Baals. He made Asherah poles, and he worshiped the whole heavenly host and served them. read more.
He built altars in the Lord’s temple, where Yahweh had said, “Jerusalem is where My name will remain forever.” He built altars to the whole heavenly host in both courtyards of the Lord’s temple. He passed his sons through the fire in the Valley of Hinnom. He practiced witchcraft, divination, and sorcery, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did a great deal of evil in the Lord’s sight, provoking Him. Manasseh set up a carved image of the idol he had made, in God’s temple, about which God had said to David and his son Solomon, “I will establish My name forever in this temple and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel.

He said to me, “Go in and see the terrible and detestable things they are committing here.” I went in and looked, and there engraved all around the wall was every form of detestable thing, crawling creatures and beasts, as well as all the idols of the house of Israel. Seventy elders from the house of Israel were standing before them, with Jaazaniah son of Shaphan standing among them. Each had a firepan in his hand, and a fragrant cloud of incense was rising up. read more.
Then He said to me, “Son of man, do you see what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the darkness, each at the shrine of his idol? For they are saying, ‘The Lord does not see us. The Lord has abandoned the land.’” Again He said to me, “You will see even more detestable things, which they are committing.” So He brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the Lord’s house, and I saw women sitting there weeping for Tammuz. And He said to me, “Do you see this, son of man? You will see even more detestable things than these.” So He brought me to the inner court of the Lord’s house, and there were about 25 men at the entrance of the Lord’s temple, between the portico and the altar, with their backs to the Lord’s temple and their faces turned to the east. They were bowing to the east in worship of the sun.

This is what the Lord says:

What fault did your fathers find in Me
that they went so far from Me,
followed worthless idols,
and became worthless themselves?

“When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not imitate the detestable customs of those nations. No one among you is to make his son or daughter pass through the fire, practice divination, tell fortunes, interpret omens, practice sorcery, cast spells, consult a medium or a familiar spirit, or inquire of the dead. read more.
Everyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord, and the Lord your God is driving out the nations before you because of these detestable things. You must be blameless before the Lord your God.

They rejected His statutes and His covenant He had made with their ancestors and the decrees He had given them. They pursued worthless idols and became worthless themselves, following the surrounding nations the Lord had commanded them not to imitate. They abandoned all the commands of the Lord their God. They made cast images for themselves, two calves, and an Asherah pole. They worshiped the whole heavenly host and served Baal. They made their sons and daughters pass through the fire and practiced divination and interpreted omens. They devoted themselves to do what was evil in the Lord’s sight and provoked Him.

For You have abandoned Your people,
the house of Jacob,
because they are full of divination from the East
and of fortune-tellers like the Philistines.
They are in league with foreigners.

I will stretch out My hand against Judah
and against all the residents of Jerusalem.
I will cut off every vestige of Baal
from this place,
the names of the pagan priests
along with the priests;
those who bow in worship on the rooftops
to the heavenly host;
those who bow and pledge loyalty to the Lord
but also pledge loyalty to Milcom;

“If a man or woman among you in one of your towns that the Lord your God will give you is discovered doing evil in the sight of the Lord your God and violating His covenant and has gone to worship other gods by bowing down to the sun, moon, or all the stars in the sky—which I have forbidden— and if you are told or hear about it, you must investigate it thoroughly. If the report turns out to be true that this detestable thing has happened in Israel, read more.
you must bring out to your gates that man or woman who has done this evil thing and stone them to death. The one condemned to die is to be executed on the testimony of two or three witnesses. No one is to be executed on the testimony of a single witness. The witnesses’ hands are to be the first in putting him to death, and after that, the hands of all the people. You must purge the evil from you.

“Then you are to shatter the jar in the presence of the people traveling with you, and you are to proclaim to them: This is what the Lord of Hosts says: I will shatter these people and this city, like one shatters a potter’s jar that can never again be mended. They will bury the dead in Topheth because there is no other place for burials. I will do so to this place”—this is the declaration of the Lord—“and to its residents, making this city like Topheth. read more.
The houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah will become impure like that place Topheth—all the houses on whose rooftops they have burned incense to the whole heavenly host and poured out drink offerings to other gods.”

Rebuke your mother; rebuke her.
For she is not My wife and I am not her husband.
Let her remove the promiscuous look from her face
and her adultery from between her breasts.
Otherwise, I will strip her naked
and expose her as she was on the day of her birth.
I will make her like a desert
and like a parched land,
and I will let her die of thirst.
I will have no compassion on her children
because they are the children of promiscuity.
read more.
Yes, their mother is promiscuous;
she conceived them and acted shamefully.
For she thought, “I will go after my lovers,
the men who give me my food and water,
my wool and flax, my oil and drink.”
Therefore, this is what I will do:
I will block her way with thorns;
I will enclose her with a wall,
so that she cannot find her paths.
She will pursue her lovers but not catch them;
she will seek them but not find them.
Then she will think,
“I will go back to my former husband,
for then it was better for me than now.”
She does not recognize
that it is I who gave her the grain,
the new wine, and the oil.
I lavished silver and gold on her,
which they used for Baal.
Therefore, I will take back My grain in its time
and My new wine in its season;
I will take away My wool and linen,
which were to cover her nakedness.
Now I will expose her shame
in the sight of her lovers,
and no one will rescue her from My hands.
I will put an end to all her celebrations:
her feasts, New Moons, and Sabbaths—
all her festivals.
I will devastate her vines and fig trees.
She thinks that these are her wages
that her lovers have given her.
I will turn them into a thicket,
and the wild animals will eat them.
And I will punish her for the days of the Baals
when she burned incense to them,
put on her rings and jewelry,
and went after her lovers,
but forgot Me.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

When the crowds saw what Paul had done, they raised their voices, saying in the Lycaonian language, “The gods have come down to us in the form of men!” And they started to call Barnabas, Zeus, and Paul, Hermes, because he was the main speaker. Then the priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the town, brought oxen and garlands to the gates. He, with the crowds, intended to offer sacrifice.

While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, his spirit was troubled within him when he saw that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with those who worshiped God and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. Then also, some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers argued with him. Some said, “What is this pseudo-intellectual trying to say?”

Others replied, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign deities”—because he was telling the good news about Jesus and the Resurrection. read more.
They took him and brought him to the Areopagus, and said, “May we learn about this new teaching you’re speaking of? For what you say sounds strange to us, and we want to know what these ideas mean.” Now all the Athenians and the foreigners residing there spent their time on nothing else but telling or hearing something new. Then Paul stood in the middle of the Areopagus and said: “Men of Athens! I see that you are extremely religious in every respect. For as I was passing through and observing the objects of your worship, I even found an altar on which was inscribed:

TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.

Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.

Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists attempted to pronounce the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “I command you by the Jesus that Paul preaches!” Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. The evil spirit answered them, “I know Jesus, and I recognize Paul—but who are you?” read more.
Then the man who had the evil spirit leaped on them, overpowered them all, and prevailed against them, so that they ran out of that house naked and wounded.

Don’t be led astray by various kinds of strange teachings; for it is good for the heart to be established by grace and not by foods, since those involved in them have not benefited.

You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot share in the Lord’s table and the table of demons.

But now, since you know God, or rather have become known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and bankrupt elemental forces? Do you want to be enslaved to them all over again? You observe special days, months, seasons, and years.

Let no one disqualify you, insisting on ascetic practices and the worship of angels, claiming access to a visionary realm and inflated without cause by his unspiritual mind.

This is what the Lord, the King of Israel and its Redeemer, the Lord of Hosts, says:

I am the first and I am the last.
There is no God but Me.

“Listen, Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.

“You are My witnesses”—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
“and My servant whom I have chosen,
so that you may know and believe Me
and understand that I am He.
No god was formed before Me,
and there will be none after Me.
I, I am Yahweh,
and there is no other Savior but Me.
I alone declared, saved, and proclaimed—
and not some foreign god among you.
So you are My witnesses”—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
“and I am God.

About eating food offered to idols, then, we know that “an idol is nothing in the world,” and that “there is no God but one.” For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth—as there are many “gods” and many “lords”— yet for us there is one God, the Father.
All things are from Him,
and we exist for Him.
And there is one Lord, Jesus Christ.
All things are through Him,
and we exist through Him.