'Idols' in the Bible
You must abstain from things sacrificed to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from fornication. Keep yourselves clear of these things, and it will be well with you. Farewell."
While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, his spirit was stirred within him when he noticed that the city was full of idols.
You who forbid adultery, do you commit adultery? You who loathe idols, do you plunder their temples?
not that in this world you are to keep wholly aloof from such as they, any more than from people who are avaricious and greedy of gain, or from worshippers of idols. For that would mean that you would be compelled to go out of the world altogether.
Now as to things which have been sacrificed to idols. This is a subject which we already understand--because we all have knowledge of it. Knowledge, however, tends to make people conceited; it is love that builds us up.
As to eating things which have been sacrificed to idols, we are fully aware that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no God but One.
And you must not be worshippers of idols, as some of them were. For it is written, "The People sat down to eat and drink, and stood up to dance."
Therefore, my dear friends, avoid all connection with the worship of idols.
You know that when you were heathens you went astray after dumb idols, wherever you happened to be led.
And what compact has the Temple of God with idols? For *we* are the Temple of the ever-living God; as God has said, "I will dwell among them, and walk about among them; and will be their God, and it is they who shall be My people."
For when others speak of us they report the reception we had from you, and how you turned from your idols to God, to be bondservants of the true and ever-living God,
Yet I have a few things against you, because you have with you some that cling to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling-block in the way of the descendants of Israel--to eat what had been sacrificed to idols, and commit fornication.
Yet I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and by her teaching leads astray My servants, so that they commit fornication and eat what has been sacrificed to idols.
But the rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues, did not even then repent and leave the things they had made, so as to cease worshipping the demons, and the idols of gold and silver, bronze, stone, and wood, which can neither see nor hear, nor move.
But as for cowards and the unfaithful, and the polluted, and murderers, fornicators, and those who practise magic or worship idols, and all liars--the portion allotted to them shall be in the Lake which burns with fire and sulphur. This is the Second Death."
The unclean are shut out, and so are all who practise magic, all fornicators, all murderers, and those who worship idols, and every one who loves falsehood and tells lies.