28 Bible Verses about Incense Offered Amiss
Most Relevant Verses
You shall not offer any strange incense on this altar, or burnt offering or meal offering; you shall not pour out a drink offering on it.
Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took their respective [ceremonial] censers, put fire in them, placed incense on it and offered strange (unauthorized, unacceptable) fire before the Lord, [an act] which He had not commanded them to do.
Do this: Take censers for yourselves, Korah and all your company, then put fire in them and place incense on them in the presence of the Lord tomorrow; and the man whom the Lord chooses shall be the one who is holy. You have gone far enough, you sons of Levi.”
Each of you take his censer and put incense on it, and each of you bring his censer before the Lord, two hundred and fifty censers; also you and Aaron shall each bring his censer.” So they each took his own censer and put fire on it and laid incense on it; and they stood at the doorway of the Tent of Meeting (tabernacle), with Moses and Aaron.
Fire also came forth from the Lord and consumed the two hundred and fifty men who were offering the incense.
Standing before these [images] were seventy elders of the house of Israel, and among them stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan [the scribe], each man with his censer in his hand and a thick and fragrant cloud of incense was rising [as they prayed to these gods].
“He who kills an ox [for pagan sacrifice] is [as guilty] as one who kills a man;
He who sacrifices a lamb, as one who breaks a dog’s neck;
He who offers a grain offering, as one who offers swine’s blood;
He who offers incense, as one who blesses an idol.
Such people have chosen their own ways,
And their soul delights in their repulsive acts;
“Do not bring worthless offerings again,
[Your] incense is repulsive to Me;
[Your] New Moon and Sabbath [observances], the calling of assemblies—
I cannot endure wickedness [your sin, your injustice, your wrongdoing] and [the squalor of] the festive assembly.
Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell face downward and paid respect to Daniel [as a great prophet of the highest God], and gave orders for an offering and fragrant incense to be presented to him [in honor of his God].
Therefore, they offer sacrifices to their net
And burn incense to their fishing net;
Because through these things their catch is large and they live luxuriously,
And their food is plentiful.
Now Solomon loved the Lord, walking [at first] in the statutes of David his father, except [for the fact that] he sacrificed and burned incense in the high places [ignoring the law that required all sacrifices to be offered at the tabernacle].
He also sacrificed and burned incense on the high places and on the hills and under every green tree.
He walked in all the ways of Asa his father, without turning from them, doing right in the sight of the Lord. However, the high places were not removed; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.
Only the high places were not removed; the people were still sacrificing and burning incense [to the Lord] on the high places [rather than at the temple].
However, the high places were not removed; the people were still sacrificing and burning incense on the high places.
Only [the altars on] the high places were not removed; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places [instead of worshiping God at the temple].
Only [the altars on] the high places were not removed; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places [rather than in the temple]. He built the upper gate of the house of the Lord.
There they burned incense on all the high places, just as the [pagan] nations whom the Lord had deported before them; and they did evil and contemptible things, provoking the Lord [to anger].
So he went up to the altar which he had made in Bethel on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, in the month which he had devised in his own heart [in defiance of God’s commandments]; and he held a feast for the Israelites and he went up to the altar to burn incense [in defiance of God’s law.]
Now behold, there came a man of God from Judah to Bethel by the word (command) of the Lord, while Jeroboam was standing by the altar [which he had built] to burn incense.
And he did the same for all of his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods.
Because they have abandoned (rejected) Me and have burned incense to other gods, that they might provoke Me to anger with all the work of their hands, therefore My wrath burns against this place, and it will not be quenched.”’
‘Yet My people have forgotten Me;
They burn incense to worthless gods,
They have stumbled from their ways
From the ancient roads,
To walk in pathways,
Not on a highway,
Then the cities of Judah and the people of Jerusalem will go and cry to the [man-made] gods to whom they burn incense, but they cannot save them in the time of their disaster.
He got rid of the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense [to pagan gods] in the high places in Judah’s cities and all around Jerusalem—also those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun, to the moon, to the constellations [of the zodiac], and to all the [starry] host of heaven.
For [as many as] the number of your cities are your gods, O Judah; and [as many as] the number of the streets of Jerusalem are the altars you have set up to the shameful thing, altars to burn incense to Baal.
The Chaldeans who are fighting against this city will come in and set this city on fire and burn it, along with the houses on whose roofs incense has been offered to Baal and drink offerings have been poured out to other gods to provoke Me to anger.
and you took your embroidered clothing and covered them, and offered My oil and My incense before them.