Joshua 24:20

The Israelites Promise To Serve Yahweh

¹⁹ Then Joshua said to the people, “You will not be able to serve the Lord [if you serve any other gods], for He is a holy God; He is a jealous God [demanding what is rightfully and uniquely His]. He will not forgive your transgression [of His law] or your sins. ²⁰ If you do abandon (reject) the Lord and serve foreign gods, then He will turn and do you harm and consume and destroy you after He has done you good.” ²¹ The people said to Joshua, “No, but we will serve [only] the Lord.”

Foreign Gods

Forsaken the Lord

From the Lord

Other Gods

Serve Other Gods

Away From The Lord

Strange Gods

Jehovah

1 Chronicles 28:9

“As for you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father [have personal knowledge of Him, be acquainted with, and understand Him; appreciate, heed, and cherish Him] and serve Him with a blameless heart and a willing mind; for the Lord searches all hearts and minds, and understands every intent and inclination of the thoughts. If you seek Him [inquiring for and of Him and requiring Him as your first and vital necessity] He will let you find Him; but if you abandon (turn away from) Him, He will reject you forever.

Acts 7:42

But God turned away [from them] and handed them over to serve the host of heaven. As it is written and forever remains written in the book of the prophets, ‘It was not [really] to Me that you offered victims and sacrifices for forty years in the wilderness, was it, O house of Israel?

2 Chronicles 15:2

and he went out to meet Asa and said to him, “Hear me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin: the Lord is with you while you are with Him. If you seek Him [inquiring for and of Him, as your soul’s first necessity], He will let you find Him; but if you abandon (turn away from) Him, He will abandon (turn away from) you.

Ezra 8:22

For I was ashamed to request troops and horsemen from the king to protect us from the enemy along the way, because we had told the king, “The hand of our God is favorable toward all those who seek Him, but His power and His anger are against all those who abandon (turn away from) Him.”

Isaiah 1:28

But rebels and sinners will be crushed and destroyed together,
And those who abandon (turn away from) the Lord will be consumed (perish).

Isaiah 63:10

But they rebelled
And grieved His Holy Spirit;
Therefore He changed into their enemy,
And He fought against them.

Isaiah 65:11-12

“But you who abandon (turn away from) the Lord,
Who forget and ignore My holy mountain (Zion),
Who set a table for Gad [the Babylonian god of fortune],
And who fill a jug of mixed wine for Meni [the god of fate],

Jeremiah 17:13

O Lord, the hope of Israel,
All who abandon You will be shamed.
Those who turn away on earth will be written down,
Because they have abandoned the Lord, the fountain of living waters.

Joshua 23:12-15

For if you ever turn back and cling to the rest of these nations, these that are left among you, and intermarry with them, so that you associate with them and they with you,

Ezekiel 18:24

“But when the righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits sin and acts in accordance with all the repulsive things that the wicked man does, will he live? All of his righteous deeds which he has done will not be remembered because of the treachery that he has committed and for his sin which he has committed; for them he shall die.

Hebrews 10:26-27

For if we go on willfully and deliberately sinning after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice [to atone] for our sins [that is, no further offering to anticipate],

Hebrews 10:38

But My righteous one [the one justified by faith] shall live by faith [respecting man’s relationship to God and trusting Him];
And if he draws back [shrinking in fear], My soul has no delight in him.