'Images' in the Bible

The one with whom you find your gods shall not live; in the presence of our relatives [search my possessions and] point out whatever you find that belongs to you and take it.” For Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen the idols.

Now Rachel had taken the household idols and put them in the camel’s saddlebag and sat on them. Laban searched through all her tent, but did not find them.

Then Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Get rid of the [idols and images of] foreign gods that are among you, and ceremonially purify yourselves and change [into fresh] clothes;

You shall not bow down to worship their gods, nor serve them, nor do [anything] in accordance with their practices. You shall completely overthrow them and break down their [sacred] pillars and images [of pagan worship].

But you shall tear down and destroy their [pagan] altars, smash in pieces their [sacred] pillars (obelisks, images) and cut down their Asherim

then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land before you and destroy all their sculpted images, and destroy all their cast idols and completely eliminate all their [idolatrous] high places,

But this is how you shall deal with them: you shall tear down their altars and smash to pieces their sacred pillars, and cut down their Asherim (symbols of the goddess Asherah), and burn their carved or sculpted images in the fire.

You shall burn the carved and sculpted images of their gods in the fire. You shall not covet the silver or gold that is on them, nor take it for yourselves, so that you will not be ensnared by it [in a deadly trap], for it is an abomination (repulsive) to the Lord your God.

You shall tear down their altars and smash their [idolatrous] pillars and burn their Asherim in the fire; you shall cut down the carved and sculpted images of their gods and obliterate their name from that place.

Now Ehud escaped while they lingered, and he passed beyond the sculptured stones and escaped to Seirah.

So you shall make replicas of your tumors and of your mice that ravage the land, and give glory to the God of Israel; perhaps He will lighten His hand [of judgment] on you and your gods and your land.

They put the ark of the Lord on the cart, and the box containing the golden mice and the replicas of their tumors.

“For rebellion is as [serious as] the sin of divination (fortune-telling),And disobedience is as [serious as] false religion and idolatry.Because you have rejected the word of the Lord,He also has rejected you as king.”

The Philistines abandoned their [pagan] idols there, so David and his men took them away [to be burned].

but have done more evil than all [the kings] who were before you; for you have gone and made for yourself other gods and molten images to provoke Me to anger, and have cast Me behind your back—

Then all the people of the land went to the house of Baal and tore it down. They utterly smashed his altar and his images to pieces, and they put Mattan the priest of Baal to death in front of the altars. And [Jehoiada] the priest appointed officers over the house of the Lord.

They abandoned all the commandments of the Lord their God and made for themselves cast images of two calves; and they made an Asherah [idol] and worshiped all the [starry] host of heaven and served Baal.

So these nations [superficially] feared the Lord; they also served their idols, as did their children and their children’s children, just as their fathers did, so do they to this day [the date of this writing].

He removed the high places [of pagan worship], broke down the images (memorial stones) and cut down the Asherim. He also crushed to pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the Israelites had burned incense to it; and it was called Nehushtan [a bronze sculpture].

He broke in pieces the sacred pillars (cultic memorial stones, images) and cut down the Asherim and replaced them with human bones [to desecrate the places forever].

Then all the people went to the house of Baal and tore it down, and they smashed its altars and its images to pieces, and killed Mattan, the priest of Baal, in front of the altars.

Instead he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, and even made cast images for the Baals.

His prayer also and how God heard him, and all his sin, his unfaithfulness, and the sites on which he built high places and set up the Asherim and the carved images, before he humbled himself, behold, they are written in the records of the Hozai.

But he did evil in the sight of the Lord, just as his father Manasseh had done. Amon sacrificed to all the carved images which his father Manasseh had made, and he served them.

For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was still young (sixteen), he began to seek after and inquire of the God of his father David; and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the Asherim, and the carved and cast images.

They tore down the altars of the Baals in his presence; he cut to pieces the incense altars that were high above them; he also smashed the Asherim and the carved images and the cast images to pieces, and ground them to dust and scattered it on the graves of those who had sacrificed to them.

he tore down the altars and beat and crushed the Asherim and the carved images into powder, and cut to pieces all the incense altars throughout the land of Israel. Then he returned to Jerusalem.

For they provoked Him to [righteous] anger with their high places [devoted to idol worship]And moved Him to jealousy with their carved images [by denying Him the love, worship, and obedience that is rightfully and uniquely His].

Let all those be [deeply] ashamed who serve carved images,Who boast in idols.Worship Him, all you gods!

“As my hand has reached to the kingdoms of the idols,Whose carved images were greater and more feared than those of Jerusalem and Samaria,

Shall I not do to Jerusalem and her imagesJust as I have done to Samaria and her idols?” [declares Assyria].

“Now look! Here comes a troop of riders, horsemen in pairs.”And one said, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon;And all the carved images of her gods are shattered on the ground.”

And you will defile your carved images overlaid with silver, and your cast images plated with gold. You will scatter them like a bloodstained cloth, and will say to them, “Be gone!”

“In fact, all of these [pagan prophets and priests] are false;Their works are worthless,Their cast images are [merely] wind and emptiness.

“I am the Lord, that is My Name;My glory I will not give to another,Nor My praise to carved idols.

Those who trust in carved idols will be turned back,And utterly put to shame,Who say to cast images,“You are our gods.”

Behold, [hear the sound of] the cry of the daughter of my people from the distant land [of Babylon]:“Is not the Lord in Zion? Is not her King within her?”[But the Lord answers] “Why have they provoked Me to anger with their carved images and with foreign idols?”

Every man has become [like a brute] irrational and stupid, without knowledge [of God];Every goldsmith is shamed by his carved idols;For his molten images are frauds and lies,And there is no breath in them.

Nebuchadnezzar will also break the images and shatter the obelisks of Heliopolis in the land of Egypt; and he will burn down the temples of the gods of Egypt.”’”

“For because you have trusted in your works [your hand-made idols] and in your treasures [instead of in God],Even you yourself will be captured;And Chemosh [your disgusting god cannot rescue you, but] will go away into exile [along with the fugitives]Together with his priests and his princes.

“Declare among the nations.Lift up a signal [to spread the news]—publish and proclaim it,Do not conceal it; say,‘Babylon has been taken,Bel [the patron god] has been shamed, Marduk (Bel) has been shattered.Babylon’s images have been shamed, her [worthless] idols have been thrown down.’

“A drought on her waters, and they will dry up!For it is a land of [worthless] idols,And they are mad over fearsome idols [those objects of terror in which they foolishly trust].

Every man has become stupid and brutelike, without knowledge [of God];Every goldsmith is shamed by the cast images he has made;For his molten idols are a lie,And there is no breath [of life] or spirit in them.

“Therefore behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord,“When I will judge and punish the idols [of Babylon],And throughout her land the mortally wounded will groan.”

As for the beauty of [gold for] ornaments, they turned it to pride and from it made the images of their repulsive things (idols) and of their vile things. Therefore I will make it an unclean thing to them.

You also took your beautiful jewels and beautiful vessels made of My gold and My silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself images of men so that you could prostitute yourself with them;

For they have committed adultery, and blood is on their hands. They have committed adultery [against Me] with their idols and have even forced their sons, whom they bore to Me, to pass through the fire as [an offering of] food to them (idols).

‘Thus says the Lord God,“I will also destroy the idolsAnd I will put an end to the images in Memphis;There will no longer be a prince of the land of Egypt.And I will put fear in the land of Egypt.

Also he will carry off to Egypt their [Syrian] gods with their cast images and their precious and costly treasure of silver and of gold, and he will refrain from waging war against the king of the North for some years.

Ephraim is oppressed; he is broken and crushed by [divine] judgment,Because he was determined to follow man’s command (vanities, filth, secular precepts).

The more they [the prophets] called them [to repentance and obedience],The more they went away from them;They kept sacrificing to the BaalsAnd burning incense to the carved images.

And now they sin more and more,And make for themselves molten images,Idols skillfully made from their silver [as it pleased them],All of them the work of the craftsmen.They say of these [very works of their hands], “Let those who sacrifice kiss and show respect to the calves [as if they were living gods]!”

You carried along your king Sikkuth and Kayyun [your man-made gods of Saturn], your images of your star-god which you made for yourselves [but you brought Me none of the appointed sacrifices].

All her idols shall be broken in pieces,All her earnings [from her idolatry] shall be burned with fire,And all her images I shall make desolate;For from the earnings of a prostitute she collected them,And to the earnings of a prostitute they shall return.

“I will also cut off your carved imagesAnd your sacred pillars from among you,So that you will no longer worship and bow downTo the work of your hands.

The Lord has given a command concerning you [O king of Nineveh]:“Your name will no longer be perpetuated.I will cut off the carved idols and cast imagesFrom the temple of your gods;I will prepare your grave,For you are vile and unworthy.”