26 Bible Verses about False Worship

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.

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.

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.

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 will put them out before the sun and the moon and all the stars of heaven, whose lovers and servants they have been, after whom they have gone, to whom they have made prayers, and to whom they have given worship: they will not be put together or placed in the earth; they will be waste on the face of the earth.

The images of their gods are to be burned with fire: have no desire for the gold and silver on them, and do not take it for yourselves, for it will be a danger to you: it is a thing disgusting to the Lord your God:

Then Jacob said to all his people, Put away the strange gods which are among you, and make yourselves clean, and put on a change of clothing:

Do not make images of false gods, or put up an image cut in stone or a pillar or any pictured stone in your land, to give worship to it; for I am the Lord your God.

My little children, keep yourselves from false gods.

You are not to make an image or picture of anything in heaven or on the earth or in the waters under the earth:

They took their wine and gave praise to the gods of gold and silver, of brass and iron and wood and stone.

You are conscious that when you were Gentiles, in whatever way you were guided, you went after images without voice or power.

Has any nation ever made a change in their gods, though they are no gods? but my people have given up their glory in exchange for what is of no profit.

For all the gods of the nations are false gods; but the Lord made the heavens.

Then the towns of Judah and the people of Jerusalem will go crying for help to the gods to whom they have been burning perfumes: but they will give them no salvation in the time of their trouble.

And the rest of the people, who were not put to death by these evils, were not turned from the works of their hands, but went on giving worship to evil spirits, and images of gold and silver and brass and stone and wood which have no power of seeing or hearing or walking:

And he himself made priests for the high places, and for the images of he-goats and oxen which he had made.

And let them make no more offerings to evil spirits, after which they have gone, turning away from the Lord. Let this be a law to them for ever, through all their generations.

They made offerings to evil spirits which were not God, to gods who were strange to them, which had newly come up, not feared by your fathers.

They even made offerings of their sons and their daughters to evil spirits,

A sword is on her waters, drying them up; for it is a land of images, and their minds are fixed on false gods.

But you have been lifting yourself up against the Lord of heaven, and they have put the vessels of his house before you, and you and your lords, your wives and your women, have taken wine in them; and you have given praise to gods of silver and gold, of brass and iron and wood and stone, who are without the power of seeing or hearing, and without knowledge: and to the God in whose hand your breath is, and whose are all your ways, you have not given glory;

If then we are the offspring of God, it is not right for us to have the idea that God is like gold or silver or stone, formed by the art or design of man.

They are nothing, a work of error: in the time of their punishment, destruction will overtake them.

What profit is the pictured image to its maker? and as for the metal image, the false teacher, why does its maker put his faith in it, making false gods without a voice?

And the Lord gave into his hands Jehoiakim, king of Judah, with some of the vessels of the house of God; and he took them away into the land of Shinar to the house of his god; and he put the vessels into the store-house of his god.

And he made places for worship at the high places, and made priests, who were not Levites, from among all the people.

And there is danger, not only that our trade may be damaged in the opinion of men, but that the holy place of the great goddess Diana may be no longer honoured, and that she to whom all Asia and the world give worship, will be put down from her high position.

They took the ark of God into the house of Dagon and put it by the side of Dagon.

But may your servant have the Lord's forgiveness for this one thing: when my master goes into the house of Rimmon for worship there, supported on my arm, and my head is bent in the house of Rimmon; when his head is bent in the house of Rimmon, may your servant have the Lord's forgiveness for this thing.

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.

The people of Samaria will be full of fear because of the ox of Beth-aven; its people will have sorrow for it, and its priests will give cries of grief for its glory, for the glory has gone in flight.

But Jehu did not keep himself from all the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, and the evil he made Israel do; the gold oxen were still in Beth-el and in Dan.

And now it is your purpose to put yourselves against the authority which the Lord has put into the hands of the sons of David, and you are a very great number, and you have with you the gold oxen which Jeroboam made to be your gods.

And he himself made priests for the high places, and for the images of he-goats and oxen which he had made.

And again the children of Israel did evil in the eyes of the Lord, worshipping the Baals and Astartes, and the gods of Aram and the gods of Zidon and the gods of Moab and the gods of the children of Ammon and the gods of the Philistines; they gave up the Lord and were servants to him no longer.

And the high places before Jerusalem, on the south side of the mountain of destruction, which Solomon, king of Israel, had made for Ashtoreth, the disgusting god of the Zidonians, and for Chemosh, the disgusting god of Moab, and for Milcom, the disgusting god of the children of Ammon, the king made unclean.

Because they are turned away from me to the worship of Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Zidonians, and Chemosh, the god of Moab, and Milcom, the god of the Ammonites; they have not been walking in my ways or doing what is right in my eyes or keeping my laws and my decisions as his father David did.

And they gave up the Lord, and became the servants of Baal and the Astartes.

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.

Then Michal took the image and put it in the bed, with a cushion of goat's hair at its head, and she put clothing over it.

Now Rachel had taken the images, and had put them in the camels' basket, and was seated on them. And Laban, searching through all the tent, did not come across them.

Now Laban had gone to see to the cutting of the wool of his sheep; so Rachel secretly took the images of the gods of her father's house.

And the man Micah had a house of gods; and he made an ephod and family gods and put one of his sons in the position of priest.

Then the five men who had gone to make a search through the country of Laish, said to their brothers, Have you knowledge that in these houses there is an ephod and family gods and a pictured image and a metal image? So now you see what to do.

And he put up an altar for Baal in the house of Baal which he had made in Samaria.

So they took the ox which was given them, and made it ready, crying out to Baal from morning till the middle of the day, and saying, O Baal, give ear to us. But there was no voice and no answer. And they were jumping up and down before the altar they had made.

So by this will the sin of Jacob be covered, and this is all the fruit of taking away his punishment; when all the stones of the altar are crushed together, so that the wood pillars and the sun-images will not be put up again.

A people who make me angry every day, making offerings in gardens, and burning perfumes on bricks.

Because Ephraim has been increasing altars for sin, altars have become a cause of sin to him.

So Israel had relations with the women of Moab in honour of the Baal of Peor: and the Lord was moved to wrath against Israel.

Your eyes have seen what the Lord did because of Baal-peor: for destruction came from the Lord on all those among you who went after Baal-peor.

And they were joined to Baal-peor, and took part in the offerings to the dead.

I made discovery of Israel as of grapes in the waste land; I saw your fathers as the first-fruits of the fig-tree in her early fruit time; but they came to Baal-peor, and made themselves holy to the thing of shame, and became disgusting like that to which they gave their love.

Was not the sin of Baal-peor great enough, from which we are not clear even to this day, though punishment came on the people of the Lord,

And he took the gold from them and, hammering it with an instrument, he made it into the metal image of a young ox: and they said, This is your god, O Israel, who took you out of the land of Egypt.

And I saw that you had done evil against the Lord, and had made for yourselves a metal image of a young ox: you had quickly been turned from the way in which the Lord had given you orders to go.

Even when they had made for themselves an ox of metal, and said, This is your God who took you up out of Egypt, and had done so much to make you angry;

They made a young ox in Horeb, and gave worship to an image of gold.

And they made the image of a young ox in those days, and made an offering to it, and had joy in the work of their hands.

And you may not make any of your children go through the fire as an offering to Molech, and you may not put shame on the name of your God: I am the Lord.

And they put up the high places of the Baal in the valley of the son of Hinnom, making their sons and their daughters go through the fire to Molech; which I did not give them orders to do, and it never came into my mind that they would do this disgusting thing, causing Judah to be turned out of the way.

Truly, you will take up Saccuth your king and Kaiwan your images, the star of your god, which you made for yourselves.

And you took up the tent of Moloch and the star of the god Rephan, images which you made to give worship to them: and I will take you away, farther than Babylon.

And Topheth, in the valley of the sons of Hinnom, he made unclean, so that no man might make his son or his daughter go through the fire to Molech.

In that day men will put their images of silver and of gold, which they made for worship, in the keeping of the beasts of the dark places;

And it will come about on that day, says the Lord of armies, that I will have the names of the images cut off out of the land, and there will be no more memory of them: and I will send all the prophets and the unclean spirit away from the land.

He will not be looking to the altars, the work of his hands, or to the wood pillars or to the sun-images which his fingers have made.

For this cause, truly, the days are coming when I will send punishment on the images of Babylon, and all her land will be shamed, and her dead will be falling down in her.

And I will have your images and your pillars cut off from you; and you will no longer give worship to the work of your hands.

And the high places before Jerusalem, on the south side of the mountain of destruction, which Solomon, king of Israel, had made for Ashtoreth, the disgusting god of the Zidonians, and for Chemosh, the disgusting god of Moab, and for Milcom, the disgusting god of the children of Ammon, the king made unclean.

For because you have put your faith in your strong places, you, even you, will be taken: and Chemosh will go out as a prisoner, his priests and his rulers together.

Do you not keep the lands of those whom Chemosh your god sends out from before you? So we will keep all the lands of those whom the Lord our God sends out from before us.

Sorrow is yours, O Moab! Destruction is your fate, O people of Chemosh: his sons have gone in flight, and his daughters are prisoners, in the hands of Sihon, king of the Amorites.

Seeming to be wise, they were in fact foolish, And by them the glory of the eternal God was changed and made into the image of man who is not eternal, and of birds and beasts and things which go on the earth.

You are conscious that when you were Gentiles, in whatever way you were guided, you went after images without voice or power.

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.

And the chiefs of the Philistines came together to make a great offering to Dagon their god, and to be glad; for they said, Our god has given into our hands Samson our hater.

They took the ark of God into the house of Dagon and put it by the side of Dagon.

And they put his war-dress in the house of their gods, and put up his head in the house of Dagon.

Come together, even come near, you nations who are still living: they have no knowledge who take up their image of wood, and make prayer to a god in whom is no salvation.

It is like a pillar in a garden of plants, and has no voice: it has to be lifted, for it has no power of walking. Have no fear of it; for it has no power of doing evil and it is not able to do any good.

And even with these words, it was hard for them to keep the people from making an offering to them.

For there was a certain man named Demetrius, a silver-worker, who made silver boxes for the images of Diana, and gave no small profit to the workmen;

And when the chief secretary had got the people quiet, he said, Men of Ephesus, is any man without knowledge that the town of Ephesus is the keeper of the holy place of the great Diana, who was sent down from Jupiter?

And hearing this, they were very angry, crying out and saying, Great is Diana of Ephesus.

And the people, with loud cries, said, It is the voice of a god, not of a man.

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.

But they had the idea that they would see him becoming ill, or suddenly falling down dead; but after waiting a long time, and seeing that no damage came to him, changing their opinion, they said he was a god.

Their images are silver and gold, the work of men's hands.

There you will be the servants of gods, made by men's hands, of wood and stone, having no power of seeing or hearing or taking food or smelling.

The wise workman makes selection of the mulberry-tree of the offering, a wood which will not become soft; so that the image may be fixed to it and not be moved.

If then we are the offspring of God, it is not right for us to have the idea that God is like gold or silver or stone, formed by the art or design of man.