'Images' in the Bible
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.
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.
And she said to her father, Let not my lord be angry because I do not get up before you, for I am in the common condition of women. And with all his searching, he did not come across the images.
But their altars are to be overturned and their pillars broken and their images cut down:
Do not go after false gods, and do not make metal images of gods for yourselves: I am the Lord your God.
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.
And I will send destruction on your high places, overturning your perfume altars, and will put your dead bodies on your broken images, and my soul will be turned from you in disgust.
See that all the people of the land are forced out from before you, and put to destruction all their pictured stones, and all their metal images, and all their high places:
Take care that you do not let the agreement of the Lord your God, which he has made with you, go out of your mind, or make for yourselves images of any sort, against the orders which the Lord your God has given you.
But this is what you are to do to them: their altars are to be pulled down and their pillars broken, and their holy trees cut down and their images burned with fire.
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:
Their altars and their pillars are to be broken down, and their holy trees burned with fire, and the images of their gods cut down; you are to take away their names out of that place.
And you have seen their disgusting doings, and the images of wood and stone and silver and gold which were among them:)
But he himself, turning back from the stone images at Gilgal, said, I have something to say to you in secret, O king. And he said, Let there be quiet. Then all those who were waiting before him went out.
But Ehud had got away while they were waiting and had gone past the stone images and got away to Seirah.
Then they said, What sin-offering are we to send to him? And they said, Five gold images of the growths caused by your disease and five gold mice, one for every lord of the Philistines: for the same disease came on you and on your lords.
So make images of the growths caused by your disease and of the mice which are damaging your land; and give glory to the God of Israel: it may be that the weight of his hand will be lifted from you and from your gods and from your land.
And put the ark of the Lord on the cart, and the gold images which you are sending as a sin-offering in a chest by its side; and send it away so that it may go.
And they put the ark of the Lord on the cart and the chest with the gold images.
Then the Levites took down the ark of the Lord and the chest in which were the gold images, and put them on the great stone: and the men of Beth-shemesh made burned offerings and gave worship that day before the Lord.
Now these are the gold images which the Philistines sent as a sin-offering to the Lord; one for Ashdod, one for Gaza, one for Ashkelon, one for Gath, one for Ekron;
For to go against his orders is like the sin of those who make use of secret arts, and pride is like giving worship to images. Because you have put away from you the word of the Lord, he has put you from your place as king.
And the Philistines, when they went in flight, did not take their images with them, and David and his men took them away.
But you have done evil more than any before you, and have made for yourself other gods, and images of metal, moving me to wrath, and turning your back on me.
And even now the hand of the Lord has come down on Israel, shaking it like a river-grass in the water; and, uprooting Israel from this good land, which he gave to their fathers, he will send them this way and that on the other side of the River; because they have made for themselves images, moving the Lord to wrath.
Those used for sex purposes in the worship of the gods he sent out of the country, and he took away all the images which his fathers had made.
Then when the burned offering was ended, straight away Jehu said to the armed men and the captains, Go in and put them to death; let not one come out. So they put them to the sword; and, pulling the images to the earth, they went into the holy place of the house of Baal.
Then all the people of the land went to the house of Baal and had it pulled down: its altars and images were all broken to bits, and Mattan, the priest of Baal, they put to death before the altars. And the priest put overseers over the Lord's house.
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.
So these nations, worshipping the Lord, still were servants to the images they had made; their children and their children's children did the same; as their fathers did, so do they, to this day.
And all those who had control of spirits, and the wonder-workers, and the images, and the false gods, and all the disgusting things which were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, Josiah put away, so that he might give effect to the words of the agreement recorded in the book which Hilkiah the priest made discovery of in the house of the Lord.
And the Philistines did not take their images with them in their flight; and at David's orders they were burned with fire.
And in the most holy place he made images of two winged beings, covering them with gold.
And he himself made priests for the high places, and for the images of he-goats and oxen which he had made.
And he took away the high places and the sun-images from all the towns of Judah; and the kingdom was quiet under his rule.
Then all the people went to the house of Baal and had it pulled down, and its altars and images broken up; and Mattan, the priest of Baal, they put to death before the altars.
And they gave up the house of the Lord God of their fathers, and became worshippers of pillars of wood and of the images; and because of this sin of theirs, wrath came on Judah and Jerusalem.
But he went in the ways of the kings of Israel and made images of metal for the Baals.
And the prayer which he made to God, and how God gave him an answer, and all his sin and his wrongdoing, and the places where he made high places and put up pillars of wood and images, before he put away his pride, are recorded in the history of the seers.
He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, as Manasseh his father had done; and Amon made offerings to all the images which his father Manasseh had made, and was their servant.
In the eighth year of his rule, while he was still young, his heart was first turned to the God of his father David; and in the twelfth year he undertook the clearing away of all the high places and the pillars and the images of wood and metal from Judah and Jerusalem.
He had the altars of the Baals broken down, while he himself was present; and the sun-images which were placed on high over them he had cut down; and the pillars of wood and the metal images he had broken up and crushed to dust, dropping the dust over the resting-places of the dead who had made offerings to them.
He had the altars and the pillars of wood pulled down and the images crushed to dust, and all the sun-images cut down, through all the land of Israel, and then he went back to Jerusalem.
They made him angry with their high places; moving him to wrath with their images.
Shamed be all those who give worship to images, and take pride in false gods; give him worship, all you gods.
And they gave worship to images; which were a danger to them:
And gave the blood of their sons and their daughters who had done no wrong, offering them to the images of Canaan; and the land was made unclean with blood.
Their images are silver and gold, the work of men's hands.
The images of the nations are silver and gold, the work of men's hands.
Their land is full of images; they give worship to the work of their hands, even to that which their fingers have made.
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;
As my hand has come on the kingdoms of the images, whose pictured images were more in number than those of Jerusalem and Samaria;
So, as I have done to Samaria and her images, I will do to Jerusalem and her images.
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.
See, here come war-carriages with men, horsemen by twos: and in answer he said, Babylon is made low, is made low, and all her images are broken on the earth.
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.
And you will make unclean what is covering your pictured images of silver, and the plating of your images of gold: you will send them away as an unclean thing, saying, Be gone!
For in that day they will all give up their images of silver and of gold, the sin which they made for themselves.
Truly they are all nothing, their works are nothing and of no value: their metal images are of no more use than wind.
I am the Lord; that is my name: I will not give my glory to another, or my praise to pictured images.
They will be turned back and be greatly shamed who put their hope in pictured images, who say to metal images, You are our gods.
All those who have gone against him will be put to shame; the makers of images will be made low.
Bel is bent down, Nebo is falling; their images are on the beasts and on the cattle: the things which you took about have become a weight to the tired beast.
They are bent down, they are falling together: they were not able to keep their images safe, but they themselves have been taken prisoner.
For this reason I made it clear to you in the past, before it came I gave you word of it: for fear that you might say, My god did these things, and my pictured and metal images made them come about.
For the children of Judah have done what is evil in my eyes, says the Lord: they have put their disgusting images in the house which is named by my name, making it unclean.
The voice of the cry of the daughter of my people comes from a far land: Is the Lord not in Zion? is not her King in her? Why have they made me angry with their images and their strange gods which are no gods?
But they put their disgusting images into the house which is named by my name, making it unclean.
Give it out among the nations, make it public, and let the flag be lifted up; give the word and keep nothing back; say, Babylon is taken, Bel is put to shame, Merodach is broken, her images are put to shame, her gods are broken.
A sword is on her waters, drying them up; for it is a land of images, and their minds are fixed on false gods.
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.
For this reason, see, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will send punishment on her images; and through all her land the wounded will be crying out in pain.
And your altars will be made waste, and your sun-images will be broken: and I will have your dead men placed before your images.
And I will put the dead bodies of the children of Israel in front of their images, sending your bones in all directions about your altars.
In all your living-places the towns will become broken walls, and the high places made waste; so that your altars may be broken down and made waste, and your images broken and ended, and so that your sun-images may be cut down and your works rubbed out.
And you will be certain that I am the Lord, when their dead men are stretched among their images round about their altars on every high hill, on all the tops of the mountains, and under every branching tree, and under every thick oak-tree, the places where they made sweet smells to all their images.
As for their beautiful ornament, they had put it on high, and had made the images of their disgusting and hated things in it: for this cause I have made it an unclean thing to them.
So I went in and saw; and there every sort of living thing which goes flat on the earth, and unclean beasts, and all the images of the children of Israel, were pictured round about on the wall.
And he said to me, Son of man, have you seen what the responsible men of the children of Israel do in the dark, every man in his room of pictured images? for they say, The Lord does not see us; the Lord has gone away from the land.
And you took the fair jewels, my silver and gold which I had given to you, and made for yourself male images, acting like a loose woman with them;
This is what the Lord has said: Because your unclean behaviour was let loose and your body uncovered in your loose ways with your lovers and with your disgusting images, and for the blood of your children which you gave to them;
And has not taken flesh with the blood for food, or given worship to the images of the children of Israel; if he has not had connection with his neighbour's wife, or come near to a woman at the time when she is unclean;
Has done wrong to the poor and to him who is in need, and taken property by force, and has not given back to one in his debt what is his, and has given worship to images and has done disgusting things,
Who has not taken the flesh with the blood for food, or given worship to the images of the children of Israel, and has not had connection with his neighbour's wife,
And I said to them, Let every man among you put away the disgusting things to which his eyes are turned, and do not make yourselves unclean with the images of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.
But they would not be controlled by me, and did not give ear to me; they did not put away the disgusting things to which their eyes were turned, or give up the images of Egypt: then I said I would let loose my passion on them to give full effect to my wrath against them in the land of Egypt.
Because they were turned away from my orders, and were not guided by my rules, and had no respect for my Sabbaths: for their hearts went after their images.
And I said to their children in the waste land, Do not be guided by the rules of your fathers or keep their orders or make yourselves unclean with their images:
Because they had not done my orders, but had been turned away from my rules, and had not given respect to my Sabbaths, and their eyes were turned to the images of their fathers.
And when you give your offerings, causing your sons to go through the fire, you make yourselves unclean with all your images to this day; and will you come to me for directions, O children of Israel? By my life, says the Lord, you will get no direction from me.
As for you, O children of Israel, the Lord has said: Let every man completely put away his images and give ear to me: and let my holy name no longer be shamed by your offerings and your images.
For the king of Babylon took his place at the parting of the ways, at the top of the two roads, to make use of secret arts: shaking the arrows this way and that, he put questions to the images of his gods, he took note of the inner parts of dead beasts.
And you are to say, This is what the Lord has said: A town causing blood to be drained out in her streets so that her time may come, and making images in her to make her unclean!
You are responsible for the blood drained out by you, and you are unclean through the images which you have made; and you have made your day come near, and the time of your judging has come; for this cause I have made you a name of shame to the nations and a cause of laughing to all countries.
And she gave her unclean love to them, all of them the noblest men of Assyria: and she made herself unclean with the images of all who were desired by her.
They will do these things to you because you have been untrue to me, and have gone after the nations, and have become unclean with their images.
For she has been false to me, and blood is on her hands, and with her images she has been untrue; and more than this, she made her sons, whom she had by me, go through the fire to them to be burned up.
For when she had made an offering of her children to her images, she came into my holy place to make it unclean; see, this is what she has done inside my house.
And I will send on you the punishment of your evil ways, and you will be rewarded for your sins with your images: and you will be certain that I am the Lord.