6 Bible Verses about Backsliding, Israel Exanples

The entire Israelite community left the Wilderness of Sin, moving from one place to the next according to the Lord’s command. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. So the people complained to Moses, “Give us water to drink.”

“Why are you complaining to me?” Moses replied to them. “Why are you testing the Lord?” But the people thirsted there for water, and grumbled against Moses. They said, “Why did you ever bring us out of Egypt to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?” read more.
Then Moses cried out to the Lord, “What should I do with these people? In a little while they will stone me!” The Lord answered Moses, “Go on ahead of the people and take some of the elders of Israel with you. Take the staff you struck the Nile with in your hand and go. I am going to stand there in front of you on the rock at Horeb; when you hit the rock, water will come out of it and the people will drink.” Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel. He named the place Massah and Meribah because the Israelites complained, and because they tested the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

When the people saw that Moses delayed in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said to him, “Come, make us a god who will go before us because this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt—we don’t know what has happened to him!” Then Aaron replied to them, “Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters and bring them to me.” So all the people took off the gold rings that were on their ears and brought them to Aaron. read more.
He took the gold from their hands, fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made it into an image of a calf.

Then they said, “Israel, this is your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!” When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; then he made an announcement: “There will be a festival to the Lord tomorrow.” Early the next morning they arose, offered burnt offerings, and presented fellowship offerings. The people sat down to eat and drink, then got up to play. The Lord spoke to Moses: “Go down at once! For your people you brought up from the land of Egypt have acted corruptly. They have quickly turned from the way I commanded them; they have made for themselves an image of a calf. They have bowed down to it, sacrificed to it, and said, ‘Israel, this is your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.’” The Lord also said to Moses: “I have seen this people, and they are indeed a stiff-necked people. Now leave Me alone, so that My anger can burn against them and I can destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.” But Moses interceded with the Lord his God: “Lord, why does Your anger burn against Your people You brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and a strong hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘He brought them out with an evil intent to kill them in the mountains and wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from Your great anger and relent concerning this disaster planned for Your people. Remember Your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Israel—You swore to them by Your very self and declared, ‘I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of the sky and will give your offspring all this land that I have promised, and they will inherit it forever.’” So the Lord relented concerning the disaster He said He would bring on His people. Then Moses turned and went down the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hands. They were inscribed on both sides—inscribed front and back. The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was God’s writing, engraved on the tablets. When Joshua heard the sound of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, “There is a sound of war in the camp.” But Moses replied:

It’s not the sound of a victory cry
and not the sound of a cry of defeat;
I hear the sound of singing! As he approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses became enraged and threw the tablets out of his hands, smashing them at the base of the mountain. Then he took the calf they had made, burned it up, and ground it to powder. He scattered the powder over the surface of the water and forced the Israelites to drink the water. Then Moses asked Aaron, “What did these people do to you that you have led them into such a grave sin?” “Don’t be enraged, my lord,” Aaron replied. “You yourself know that the people are intent on evil. They said to me, ‘Make us a god who will go before us because this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt—we don’t know what has happened to him!’ So I said to them, ‘Whoever has gold, take it off,’ and they gave it to me. When I threw it into the fire, out came this calf!” Moses saw that the people were out of control, for Aaron had let them get out of control, resulting in weakness before their enemies. And Moses stood at the camp’s entrance and said, “Whoever is for the Lord, come to me.” And all the Levites gathered around him. He told them, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says, ‘Every man fasten his sword to his side; go back and forth through the camp from entrance to entrance, and each of you kill his brother, his friend, and his neighbor.’” The Levites did as Moses commanded, and about 3,000 men fell dead that day among the people. Afterward Moses said, “Today you have been dedicated to the Lord, since each man went against his son and his brother. Therefore you have brought a blessing on yourselves today.” The following day Moses said to the people, “You have committed a grave sin. Now I will go up to the Lord; perhaps I will be able to atone for your sin.” So Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Oh, these people have committed a grave sin; they have made a god of gold for themselves. Now if You would only forgive their sin. But if not, please erase me from the book You have written.” The Lord replied to Moses: “I will erase whoever has sinned against Me from My book. Now go, lead the people to the place I told you about; see, My angel will go before you. But on the day I settle accounts, I will hold them accountable for their sin.” And the Lord inflicted a plague on the people for what they did with the calf Aaron had made.

They were seized with craving in the wilderness
and tested God in the desert.
He gave them what they asked for,
but sent a wasting disease among them. In the camp they were envious of Moses
and of Aaron, the Lord’s holy one.
read more.
The earth opened up and swallowed Dathan;
it covered the assembly of Abiram.
Fire blazed throughout their assembly;
flames consumed the wicked. At Horeb they made a calf
and worshiped the cast metal image.
They exchanged their glory
for the image of a grass-eating ox.
They forgot God their Savior,
who did great things in Egypt,
wonderful works in the land of Ham,
awe-inspiring acts at the Red Sea.
So He said He would have destroyed them—
if Moses His chosen one
had not stood before Him in the breach
to turn His wrath away from destroying them. They despised the pleasant land
and did not believe His promise.
They grumbled in their tents
and did not listen to the Lord’s voice.
So He raised His hand against them with an oath
that He would make them fall in the desert
and would disperse their descendants
among the nations,
scattering them throughout the lands. They aligned themselves with Baal of Peor
and ate sacrifices offered to lifeless gods.
They provoked the Lord with their deeds,
and a plague broke out against them.
But Phinehas stood up and intervened,
and the plague was stopped.
It was credited to him as righteousness
throughout all generations to come. They angered the Lord at the waters of Meribah,
and Moses suffered because of them;
for they embittered his spirit,
and he spoke rashly with his lips.

Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of 110. They buried him in the territory of his inheritance, in Timnath-heres, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash. That whole generation was also gathered to their ancestors. After them another generation rose up who did not know the Lord or the works He had done for Israel. read more.
The Israelites did what was evil in the Lord’s sight. They worshiped the Baals and abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of Egypt. They went after other gods from the surrounding peoples and bowed down to them. They infuriated the Lord, for they abandoned Him and worshiped Baal and the Ashtoreths. The Lord’s anger burned against Israel, and He handed them over to marauders who raided them. He sold them to the enemies around them, and they could no longer resist their enemies. Whenever the Israelites went out, the Lord was against them and brought disaster on them, just as He had promised and sworn to them. So they suffered greatly. The Lord raised up judges, who saved them from the power of their marauders, but they did not listen to their judges. Instead, they prostituted themselves with other gods, bowing down to them. They quickly turned from the way of their fathers, who had walked in obedience to the Lord’s commands. They did not do as their fathers did. Whenever the Lord raised up a judge for the Israelites, the Lord was with him and saved the people from the power of their enemies while the judge was still alive. The Lord was moved to pity whenever they groaned because of those who were oppressing and afflicting them. Whenever the judge died, the Israelites would act even more corruptly than their fathers, going after other gods to worship and bow down to them. They did not turn from their evil practices or their obstinate ways. The Lord’s anger burned against Israel, and He declared, “Because this nation has violated My covenant that I made with their fathers and disobeyed Me, I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations Joshua left when he died. I did this to test Israel and to see whether they would keep the Lord’s way by walking in it, as their fathers had.” The Lord left these nations and did not drive them out immediately. He did not hand them over to Joshua.

They did not destroy the peoples
as the Lord had commanded them
but mingled with the nations
and adopted their ways.
They served their idols,
which became a snare to them.
read more.
They sacrificed their sons and daughters to demons.
They shed innocent blood—
the blood of their sons and daughters
whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan;
so the land became polluted with blood.
They defiled themselves by their actions
and prostituted themselves by their deeds. Therefore the Lord’s anger burned against His people,
and He abhorred His own inheritance.
He handed them over to the nations;
those who hated them ruled them.
Their enemies oppressed them,
and they were subdued under their power.
He rescued them many times,
but they continued to rebel deliberately
and were beaten down by their sin.

Didn’t King Solomon of Israel sin in matters like this? There was not a king like him among many nations. He was loved by his God and God made him king over all Israel, yet foreign women drew him into sin.