Thematic Bible: What should be done to idols


Thematic Bible



But this is what you must do to them: you shall break down their altars, and their stone pillars you shall smash, and their Asherah poles you shall hew down, and you shall burn their idols with fire.

" 'You will not bow to their gods, and you will not serve them, and you will not act according to their actions, because you will utterly demolish them, and you will utterly break their stone pillars.

He said, "Remove the foreign gods that [are] in your midst, and incline your hearts to Yahweh the God of Israel."

"Keep for yourself what I myself have commanded you today. Look, I [am about to] drive from before you the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites. Be careful for yourself, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you are going, lest it be a snare among you. Rather, you will tear down their altars, and you will break their stone pillars, and you will cut off their Asherah poles.

Then Yahweh spoke to Moses on the desert-plateau of Moab by [the] Jordan [across] Jericho, saying, "Speak to the {Israelites} and say to them, 'When you cross the Jordan into the land of Canaan, you will drive out the inhabitants of the land from your presence, and you will destroy all their idols and all the images of their molten idols, and you will demolish all their high places;

You must completely demolish all [of] the places there where [they] served their gods, [that is], the nations whom you [are] about to dispossess, on the high mountains, and on the hills and under each leafy green tree. And you shall break down their altars, and you shall smash their stone pillars, and their Asherah poles you must burn with fire, and the images of their gods you shall hew down, and you shall blot out their names from that place.

And the angel of Yahweh went up from Gilgal to Bokim and said, "I brought you up from Egypt, and I brought you to the land that I had promised to your ancestors. I said, 'I will never break my covenant with you. And [as for] you, do not {make a covenant} with the inhabitants of this land; break down their altars.' But you did not listen to my voice. {Why would you do such a thing}?