Blind Devotion

G. K. Beale’s work We Become What We Worship draws attention to a deeply rooted biblical pattern: worship is never neutral; it shapes the one who practices it. While this idea unfolds across the whole of Scripture, it is often overlooked how consistently the Bible warns against misplaced devotion.

In fact, around 95 verses speak directly against idol worship; whether formed from wood, stone, silver, or gold, and the act of bowing down to them. Significantly, this warning is not confined to the Old Testament; at least seven of these books appear in the New Testament as well. This continuity suggests that the issue of idolatry is not merely ancient or cultural, but an enduring spiritual concern that carries through the entire biblical narrative.

What emerges is not just a prohibition, but the beginning of a pattern; one that reveals what worship ultimately does to those who give themselves to it.

Idolatry in Isaiah: A Foundational Warning

Before arriving at Isaiah’s commission in chapter 6, the opening chapters of the book establish a clear and uncompromising background: God will not tolerate a people who outwardly honor Him while inwardly turning to corruption and false worship.

In Isaiah 1:15, God rejects the people’s religious acts altogether: “When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen.” Their worship is not merely ineffective; it is offensive.

This is clarified further in Isaiah 1:23, where the root problem is exposed. The leaders are described as rebellious, lovers of bribes, and seekers of personal gain rather than justice. Their misplaced devotion; to wealth, power, and self-interest; reveals a deeper form of idolatry that goes beyond carved images.

By Isaiah 2:18, the outcome of such devotion is declared plainly: “and the idols shall utterly pass away.” What the people trust in will not endure. The objects of their worship, whether visible or hidden in the heart, are destined for removal and judgment.

Isaiah 5:21 adds another layer to this condition: “Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight.” Here, self-reliance itself becomes a form of idolatry. Instead of depending on God, the people elevate their own understanding, placing themselves at the center.

Taken together, these passages establish a consistent theme: idolatry is not limited to physical images of wood, stone, silver, or gold; it includes anything that replaces God as the object of trust, desire, or dependence. And throughout these opening chapters, the message is unmistakable: such worship provokes divine rejection and inevitable judgment.

This sets the stage for Isaiah 6, where the consequences of this pattern begin to unfold more sharply.

Made by man. Kissed in devotion. Called holy. But what does God say?

Isaiah 6 presents one of the most sobering moments in Scripture. When God commissions the prophet, the message is given in stark and unmistakable terms: “Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not.”

This is followed by an even more weighty command: “Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.”

At first glance, this is difficult to grasp. Why would God send a message that results in blindness rather than understanding? Yet Isaiah has already laid the foundation. The problem did not begin here. The people had long been warned to turn away from injustice, corruption, and idolatry. Their leaders, in particular, are described as those who seek personal gain rather than justice; men who claim to belong to God, yet ignore the very word they profess to uphold.

Again and again, the covenant people were called to turn from idols; objects formed from wood, stone, silver, and gold; and to walk in righteousness. The call to “convert,” to turn back and be healed, had already gone out many times. What Isaiah 6 reveals is not the beginning of that call, but what happens when it is continually rejected. The people are not being denied understanding without cause; rather, they are being given over to the condition they have chosen.

This pattern is not isolated. Across Scripture, there are many warnings; around ninety-five passages; against idolatry and the worship of created things. And this concern continues into the New Testament, showing that it is not merely an ancient issue, but an enduring one.

Even in the time of Christ, the same tension remained. In the synagogue, He read from the scroll of Isaiah (Luke 4:16–21), bringing the words of the prophet directly before the people. Yet still, many heard, but did not truly understand, nor do they today!

There is also a historical dimension worth noting. Medieval canon lawyers, particularly the early Decretists, wrestled with questions of authority by interpreting texts such as Gratian’s Decretum. One passage records a letter attributed to Pope Gregory the Great, stating that the first four general councils should be honored “like the four Gospels” because of their universal acceptance. Yet even these canonists did not conclude that councils were equal to Scripture. Scripture remained the highest authority, with councils placed beneath it. As it was expressed, even the most authoritative councils could not alter what had been established—“the holy Roman church cannot change or mutilate [them] by one iota.”

This raises a serious tension. If Scripture stands above all, then no tradition, ruling, or later development can overturn what God has already spoken. And yet, throughout history and even now, there are those who claim devotion to God while adjusting His commands in practice; especially in matters surrounding images, statues, and acts of devotion. Some may draw distinctions in language, calling it veneration rather than worship, but Scripture consistently emphasizes that God sees not only words, but actions and the orientation of the heart.

Isaiah 6, then, is not simply a difficult theological passage; it is a warning. It shows what happens when truth is repeatedly ignored, when hearing does not lead to obedience, and when devotion is redirected toward what God has already forbidden. Over time, the heart becomes unresponsive, the ears grow heavy, and the eyes are closed; not by accident, but as the outworking of persistent refusal.

It is a passage that calls for careful reflection, because it speaks not only to a past generation, but to any who would claim to worship God while setting aside what He has clearly revealed.

Israel did not merely worship idols; they became like them. In turning to images of wood, stone, silver, and gold, they took on the very characteristics of what they revered—spiritually unseeing, unhearing, and unresponsive. This was not accidental, but the direct result of disobedience to God’s commands.

As it is written: “They shall be turned back, they shall be greatly ashamed, that trust in graven images, that say to the molten images, Ye are our gods.Hear, ye deaf; and look, ye blind, that ye may see.Who is blind, but my servant? or deaf, as my messenger that I sent? who is blind as he that is perfect, and blind as the Lord’s servant? Seeing many things, but thou observest not; opening the ears, but he heareth not.” (Isaiah 42:17–20, KJV)

This is the same condition reflected in Isaiah 6. The people hear, but do not understand; they see, but do not perceive. Their spiritual senses have been dulled because they have given themselves over to what is lifeless. What they worshipped, they became; and in becoming like their idols, they were brought into ruin.

For this reason, Isaiah 6 is not only a difficult passage, but a foundational one. It expresses with clarity the principle that echoes throughout Scripture: worship shapes the worshiper. Because of its depth, its connections to both earlier and later texts, and its central place in understanding Israel’s condition, it requires careful and patient attention as we follow its meaning.

If, as acknowledged even within church history, Scripture stands as the highest authority—above councils, traditions, and all human interpretation; then its voice must remain decisive in matters of faith and practice. And if, as the New Testament itself affirms across multiple books, idolatry is consistently warned against and forbidden, then this raises a serious and unavoidable question.

What does it mean when a church or tradition appears to continue practices that Scripture speaks against? Can human authority, however ancient or established, redefine what God has already addressed? Or does such a tension call for careful re-examination rather than assumption?

The issue is not merely external actions, but the posture of the heart. Scripture repeatedly warns against elevating human wisdom above divine instruction. When people begin to justify or reinterpret clear commands in order to preserve established practices, they risk stepping into the very pattern described by the prophets; seeing, but not perceiving; hearing, but not understanding.

At the same time, questions of salvation are not easily reduced to a single issue or outward practice. Scripture speaks of both truth and grace, of accountability and mercy. It calls individuals not only to examine others, but to examine themselves; to ask whether their worship is aligned with what God has revealed, or shaped by what is familiar, inherited, or desired.

So the question is not only about institutions or traditions, but about each person: are we submitting to the authority of God’s word, or reshaping it to fit our own understanding?

Beale’s central claim is simple, but devastating: idolatry does not only break covenant; it deforms the worshiper. In his own framing, the book’s controlling thesis is that “what people revere, they resemble, either for ruin or restoration,” and he builds the whole study by tracing that pattern from Isaiah, through the Old Testament, into the Gospels, Paul, and Revelation. He also makes clear that the title is metaphorical: people do not literally become wood or stone, but they become like what they worship in character, perception, and spiritual condition.

What makes Beale’s argument powerful is that he does not treat idolatry as only a problem of statues. He begins further back, with creation itself. Humanity was made in God’s image to reflect God’s glory. So the basic question is never whether people will image something, but what they will image. If they worship the Creator, they are conformed to his likeness. If they give themselves to created things, they are reduced to the level of those things. In that sense, idolatry is not merely a forbidden ritual; it is a reversal of creation order. The image-bearer bows before an image made by image-bearers. That is why idolatry is so absurd and so destructive at the same time.

The deepest strength of the book is Beale’s reading of Isaiah 6. He argues that Isaiah 6:9–13 is not just a general word of judgment on disobedience, but a judgment specifically shaped by Israel’s idolatry. The famous words are not arbitrary divine severity. They are fitting judgment. Israel has worshiped gods that cannot see, hear, or respond, and therefore Israel is judged by becoming like those gods: seeing without perceiving, hearing without understanding. That is the irony at the heart of Beale’s thesis. Sin becomes punishment. The idolater is not only condemned for the idol; he is remade by it. Beale says the idea first crystallized for him in his work on Isaiah 6, where he described the principle as: what you revere you resemble, either for ruin or restoration.

This is where the Old Testament texts become crucial.

“Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them.”—Exodus 20:3–5, KJV

The commandment is not only against false theology; it is against false worship, false representation, and false allegiance. Beale notes that the first and second commandments work together: to have another god is to worship the work of creation in place of the Creator.

Now place beside that Isaiah 6:

“And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not.Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.”—Isaiah 6:9–10, KJV

Beale’s point is that this language matches the stock biblical description of idols. Idols have eyes but do not see, ears but do not hear, mouths but do not speak. The punishment therefore fits the sin: those who trust dead images become spiritually deadened. That is why Beale links Isaiah 6 with Psalm 115 and Psalm 135 so strongly. He explicitly argues that Psalm 115 makes the idea plain that Isaiah 6 implies.

“Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands.They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not:They have ears, but they hear not: noses have they, but they smell not:They have hands, but they handle not: feet have they, but they walk not: neither speak they through their throat.They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them.”—Psalm 115:4–8, KJV

This is the clearest biblical summary of Beale’s thesis. The idol is lifeless, senseless, and mute. The worshiper becomes like the idol. The astonishing thing is that Scripture does not treat this as poetic exaggeration. It treats it as spiritual anthropology. Worship shapes perception. Devotion trains the senses. A false god produces a false self.

That is why Isaiah 42 matters so much to this theme:

“They shall be turned back, they shall be greatly ashamed, that trust in graven images, that say to the molten images, Ye are our gods.Hear, ye deaf; and look, ye blind, that ye may see.Who is blind, but my servant? or deaf, as my messenger that I sent? who is blind as he that is perfect, and blind as the Lord’s servant? Seeing many things, but thou observest not; opening the ears, but he heareth not.”—Isaiah 42:17–20, KJV

Here the connection is no longer subtle. Those who trust graven images are then called deaf and blind. Israel has become like the gods it serves. The covenant people, called to display the glory of the Lord, instead display the senselessness of idols. In Beale’s reading, this is not incidental imagery. It is the theological logic of idolatry itself.

The same current runs back into Deuteronomy.

“And there ye shall serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.”—Deuteronomy 4:28, KJV

“Yet the Lord hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day.”—Deuteronomy 29:4, KJV

Beale argues that Deuteronomy already joins these two ideas: idols are blind and deaf, and Israel becomes blind and deaf. He traces that line into the Psalms and prophets, concluding that the wilderness generation and Isaiah’s generation are both portrayed as becoming like the lifeless idols they worship, and that this likeness “mortally injures them.”

That last point is worth pausing over. Beale does not mean only that idolaters adopt bad habits. He means idolatry disorders the whole person. The mind is darkened. The will is bent. The heart is dulled. The senses are spiritually ruined. This is why his work is not really about religious artifacts alone. It is about how misplaced worship hollows out human life.

The prophetic literature confirms this again and again.

“Thus saith the Lord, What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain?”—Jeremiah 2:5, KJV

That last phrase is one of the most devastating in the Bible: “and are become vain.” They followed emptiness and became empty. They pursued what was false and were themselves made false. Beale’s thesis could almost be restated from Jeremiah: what they followed, they became.

Habakkuk sees the same futility:

“What profiteth the graven image that the maker thereof hath graven it; the molten image, and a teacher of lies, that the maker of his work trusteth therein, to make dumb idols?”—Habakkuk 2:18, KJV

The idol is not merely an object; it is a “teacher of lies.” It catechizes its worshipers into unreality. It teaches a person to trust what cannot save, hear, or speak. That is why idolatry always carries moral and social effects too. Once the living God is displaced, truth itself bends. Justice collapses. Desire becomes untethered. Beale’s argument helps explain why the prophets so often join idolatry and injustice: false worship produces false life.

This comes to a climax in the New Testament. Beale’s major contribution is showing that the pattern does not disappear after the prophets. It intensifies.

“Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.”—Romans 1:21–23, KJV

Romans 1 is Paul’s theology of idolatry in compressed form. Humanity “changed the glory” of God for images; the result is not neutral. Their heart is darkened. Their thinking becomes futile. Their wisdom turns to folly. This is exactly the pattern Beale sees throughout Scripture: worship determines resemblance. The exchange of God for idols leads to the exchange of sanity for corruption. Paul then repeats the theme:

“Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator.”—Romans 1:25, KJV

Idolatry is therefore not one sin among many. It is the root exchange beneath many sins. It redirects love, loyalty, and imagination. Once that exchange occurs, the rest of human disorder follows.

The New Testament warnings are direct and numerous, which matters for my broader argument that idolatry is not merely an Old Testament concern.

“Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.”—1 John 5:21, KJV

“Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry.”—1 Corinthians 10:14, KJV

“Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them.”—1 Corinthians 10:7, KJV

“Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry.”—Colossians 3:5, KJV

The New Testament expands the idea as well as repeats it. Idolatry is still literal in pagan settings, but it is also inward. Covetousness is idolatry because it assigns ultimate value, fear, and hope to something other than God. This fits Beale’s opening definition that humans are always image-bearers and never neutral.

Revelation then brings the whole biblical pattern to its sharpest close. Beale devotes a full chapter to Revelation because he sees it as a final consolidation of the Old Testament theology of idolatry.

“And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk.”—Revelation 9:20, KJV

That verse is almost a summary of the entire biblical witness. The idols are gold, silver, brass, stone, and wood. They cannot see, hear, or walk. The people refuse to repent. Revelation is not inventing a new theology; it is consciously drawing on the ancient prophetic mockery of idols and showing that the human race still resists the living God in exactly the same way.

Beale’s reading of Revelation is especially penetrating because he sees a double exposure there. Idolatry is exposed not only in temples with statues, but in empire, luxury, coercive power, compromise, and false worship. Babylon is not less idolatrous because it is politically sophisticated. It is more dangerous because it can make idolatry look normal, beautiful, even righteous. That is one of the most useful things in Beale’s work for a modern reader: it prevents us from limiting idolatry to carved objects while ignoring systems of devotion built around wealth, status, nation, pleasure, ideology, or self.

Still, Beale does not flatten the issue into a vague metaphor. He keeps the force of the biblical prohibition against actual images and actual idol worship. He does not say, “Since everything can become an idol, statues no longer matter.” He says the opposite in effect: the visible practice and the inward condition belong together. External idols reveal internal exchange. Internal idols seek external forms.

Another important feature of the book is that Beale does not end in ruin. He also traces the reverse pattern: if worshipers become like idols for destruction, worshipers of the true God are conformed to God’s image for restoration. This is the positive side of the same principle.

“But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory.”—2 Corinthians 3:18, KJV

“For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son.”—Romans 8:29, KJV

Beale explicitly says the book’s concern is not only ruin but restoration. The same structure remains: worship shapes being. Beholding Christ transforms the worshiper into Christ’s likeness, just as beholding idols deforms the worshiper into their likeness. That makes the theology of idolatry much more than a negative warning. It becomes a doctrine of spiritual formation.

So what is the deepest insight in Beale’s work?

It is that idolatry is a competing liturgy of humanity. It promises nearness, control, reassurance, visibility, and power. But because the object worshiped is dead, the result is deadness. The idolater gradually loses the capacity for true sight, true hearing, true judgment, true love. The person may remain active, emotional, even "religious", but spiritually becomes unresponsive. That is exactly why Isaiah 6 is so terrifying. The judgment is not merely exile or destruction. The judgment is becoming the kind of person who can stand before truth and still not perceive it.

That makes Beale’s work especially relevant to religious communities. His thesis is not aimed only at obvious pagans. Israel is the primary example. The covenant people can have temple, sacrifice, tradition, and language about God, and yet become blind through idolatry. The danger is greatest where people assume that possession of sacred things guarantees fidelity to the living God. Beale’s work refuses that comfort.

The book also helps explain why Scripture speaks of idolatry with such intensity. It is not because God is insecure. It is because idolatry destroys what humans were made to be. God’s jealousy is the jealousy of the Creator for creatures made to reflect his glory, not to diminish themselves by bowing before their own manufacture.

A concise way to state Beale’s achievement would be this: he shows that the Bible has one deeply unified theology of idolatry. The prohibitions in Torah, the mockery in the prophets, the warnings in the Psalms, the analysis in Paul, and the final exposure in Revelation are all saying the same thing from different angles. Worship is transformative. False worship is deformative. True worship is restorative.

A Biblical Rebuttal: Authority, Idolatry, and the Unchanged Command

If it is granted; as even Pope Gregory the Great affirmed; that Scripture stands above all human authority and “cannot be changed or mutilated by one iota,” then the discussion about images is not ultimately about tradition, intention, or terminology. It is about whether practice aligns with what God has already spoken.

The Catechism claims that images are not idols, that honor given to them passes beyond them, and that such acts are “veneration” rather than worship. But this distinction, while carefully constructed, does not address the central biblical concern. Scripture does not primarily argue at the level of terminology; it speaks at the level of action and transformation.

The consistent biblical pattern, as traced in depth by Beale, is not merely that idols are forbidden, but that those who give themselves to them are shaped by them. Idolatry is never neutral. It is not contained by intention, nor controlled by vocabulary. The act of directing physical gestures; bowing, kneeling, kissing, parading,serving; toward a created object is precisely what Scripture repeatedly identifies as the problem, regardless of what the worshiper calls it.

This exposes a critical tension. If the biblical command prohibits not only false gods but also the making of images and the act of bowing before them, then redefining those same actions as “veneration” does not resolve the issue; it bypasses it. Scripture does not present idolatry as something avoided by linguistic distinction, but by obedience.

Beale’s theological insight sharpens this further: worship shapes the worshiper. The question is not only what is intended, but what is formed. Throughout Scripture, those who turn to lifeless representations become spiritually dulled; unable to perceive, unable to hear, unable to respond rightly to God. This is why Isaiah speaks of a people who see but do not perceive, and hear but do not understand. It is not an arbitrary judgment, but a fitting one. They have become like what they have trusted.

If that principle is true; and Scripture consistently affirms that it is; then the practice of directing devotion toward physical representations cannot be dismissed as harmless. Even if the stated intention is to honor something beyond the image, the repeated biblical warning is that such practices reshape the heart itself.

The Catechism appeals to the Incarnation as justification for images, arguing that because God became visible, representation is now permissible. Yet this reasoning raises a deeper question: does the Incarnation overturn prior commands, or fulfill them without contradiction? Nowhere does the New Testament reverse the prohibition on images as objects of devotion. Instead, it intensifies the call to worship God in spirit and truth, and continues to warn against idolatry in multiple books.

This leads to a more difficult but necessary question:If the making and use of devotional images were truly acceptable to God, why would there ever have been a need to restructure or reinterpret the commandment that explicitly forbids them?

Historically, the wording of the commandments in Scripture has not changed. What has changed is their presentation in catechetical teaching. Following a tradition associated with Augustine, the prohibition against images is absorbed into the first commandment, rather than presented as a distinct and explicit command. At the same time, the final commandment concerning coveting is divided into two. The total number remains ten, but the structure shifts.

This is not a change to the biblical text itself, but it is a change in emphasis and clarity. What Scripture presents plainly and separately; both the prohibition of other gods and the prohibition of images; is condensed in such a way that the second element becomes less visible in instruction.

And this returns us to Gregory’s principle: if the Church cannot change what has been given “by one iota,” then any development in teaching must remain fully transparent to the original command. It cannot obscure, soften, or reframe what God has spoken in direct terms.

At its core, the issue is not about accusing individuals, but about fidelity to revelation. Scripture consistently presents idolatry not only as the worship of false gods, but as the misuse of created things in acts of devotion that belong to God alone. It does not allow for a middle category where such actions are reclassified and thereby made acceptable.

The deeper warning; one that Beale draws out with clarity; is that idolatry is not merely an external error, but a formative one. It reshapes perception, dulls spiritual awareness, and leads to a condition where truth can be present yet no longer recognized. This is why the biblical writers speak so urgently and repeatedly on the matter.

So the question is not ultimately whether a practice can be justified by theological explanation, but whether it stands unchanged under the weight of Scripture. If God has spoken clearly, then no tradition, however ancient, can redefine obedience without consequence.

And if worship truly shapes the worshiper, then the stakes are not theoretical; they are spiritual, and they are profound.

Questions for Reflection on Worship, Authority, and Obedience

1. If God has already spoken clearly about not making images and not bowing before them, what authority allows any later tradition to redefine or reinterpret those same actions?

2. When Scripture emphasizes what people do (bowing, kissing, parading, serving, trusting), rather than what they call it, can a change in terminology; from “worship” to “veneration”; truly change the nature of the act?

3. If, as Scripture teaches, worship shapes the worshiper, what effect might repeated physical devotion toward created objects have on the heart, even if the intention is said to be directed beyond them?

4. Why does the Bible consistently describe idolaters as becoming spiritually blind and deaf; what does that suggest about the long-term impact of misplaced devotion?

5. If the command against images was given so explicitly and repeatedly, what does it say about human nature that there is a continual desire to reintroduce them into worship?

6. If leaders are warned in Scripture against being “wise in their own eyes,” how can we discern whether a theological explanation is faithful to God’s word; or an attempt to justify practices already desired?

7. If Scripture cannot be changed “by one iota,” why has the presentation of the commandments been structured in a way that makes the prohibition of images less explicit?

8. Does appealing to tradition or historical development carry more weight than the plain reading of Scripture, or should all traditions be measured and corrected by it?

9. If Christ and the apostles continued to warn against idolatry, where is the clear New Testament teaching that permits the devotional use of images?

10. When standing before God, will the distinction between “veneration” and “worship” be judged by human definitions; or by the actions and intentions of the heart as He sees them?

Bible verses against idols.

Lev_19:4  Turn ye not unto idols, nor make to yourselves molten gods: I am the LORD your God.

Lev_26:1  Ye shall make you no idols nor graven image, neither rear you up a standing image, neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land, to bow down unto it: for I am the LORD your God.

Lev_26:30  And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcases upon the carcases of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you.

Deu_29:17  And ye have seen their abominations, and their idols, wood and stone, silver and gold, which were among them:)

1Sa_31:9  And they cut off his head, and stripped off his armour, and sent into the land of the Philistines round about, to publish it in the house of their idols, and among the people.

1Ki_15:12  And he took away the sodomites out of the land, and removed all the idols that his fathers had made.

1Ki_21:26  And he did very abominably in following idols, according to all things as did the Amorites, whom the LORD cast out before the children of Israel.

2Ki_17:12  For they served idols, whereof the LORD had said unto them, Ye shall not do this thing.

2Ki_21:11  Because Manasseh king of Judah hath done these abominations, and hath done wickedly above all that the Amorites did, which were before him, and hath made Judah also to sin with his idols:

2Ki_21:21  And he walked in all the way that his father walked in, and served the idols that his father served, and worshipped them:

2Ki_23:24  Moreover the workers with familiar spirits, and the wizards, and the images, and the idols, and all the abominations that were spied in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, did Josiah put away, that he might perform the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the LORD.

1Ch_10:9  And when they had stripped him, they took his head, and his armour, and sent into the land of the Philistines round about, to carry tidings unto their idols, and to the people.

1Ch_16:26  For all the gods of the people are idols: but the LORD made the heavens.

2Ch_15:8  And when Asa heard these words, and the prophecy of Oded the prophet, he took courage, and put away the abominable idols out of all the land of Judah and Benjamin, and out of the cities which he had taken from mount Ephraim, and renewed the altar of the LORD, that was before the porch of the LORD.

2Ch_24:18  And they left the house of the LORD God of their fathers, and served groves and idols: and wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for this their trespass.

2Ch_34:7  And when he had broken down the altars and the groves, and had beaten the graven images into powder, and cut down all the idols throughout all the land of Israel, he returned to Jerusalem.

Psa_96:5  For all the gods of the nations are idols: but the LORD made the heavens.

Psa_97:7  Confounded be all they that serve graven images, that boast themselves of idols: worship him, all ye gods.

Psa_106:36  And they served their idols: which were a snare unto them.

Psa_106:38  And shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan: and the land was polluted with blood.

Psa_115:4  Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands.

Psa_135:15  The idols of the heathen are silver and gold, the work of men's hands.

Isa_2:8  Their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made:

Isa_2:18  And the idols he shall utterly abolish.

Isa_2:20  In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats;

Isa_10:10  As my hand hath found the kingdoms of the idols, and whose graven images did excel them of Jerusalem and of Samaria;

Isa_10:11  Shall I not, as I have done unto Samaria and her idols, so do to Jerusalem and her idols?

Isa_19:1  The burden of Egypt. Behold, the LORD rideth upon a swift cloud, and shall come into Egypt: and the idols of Egypt shall be moved at his presence, and the heart of Egypt shall melt in the midst of it.

Isa_19:3  And the spirit of Egypt shall fail in the midst thereof; and I will destroy the counsel thereof: and they shall seek to the idols, and to the charmers, and to them that have familiar spirits, and to the wizards.

Isa_31:7  For in that day every man shall cast away his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which your own hands have made unto you for a sin.

Isa_45:16  They shall be ashamed, and also confounded, all of them: they shall go to confusion together that are makers of idols.

Isa_46:1  Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth, their idols were upon the beasts, and upon the cattle: your carriages were heavy loaden; they are a burden to the weary beast.

Isa_57:5  Enflaming yourselves with idols under every green tree, slaying the children in the valleys under the clifts of the rocks?

Jer_50:2  Declare ye among the nations, and publish, and set up a standard; publish, and conceal not: say, Babylon is taken, Bel is confounded, Merodach is broken in pieces; her idols are confounded, her images are broken in pieces.

Jer_50:38  A drought is upon her waters; and they shall be dried up: for it is the land of graven images, and they are mad upon their idols.

Ezk_6:4  And your altars shall be desolate, and your images shall be broken: and I will cast down your slain men before your idols.

Ezk_6:5  And I will lay the dead carcases of the children of Israel before their idols; and I will scatter your bones round about your altars.

Ezk_6:6  In all your dwellingplaces the cities shall be laid waste, and the high places shall be desolate; that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, and your idols may be broken and cease, and your images may be cut down, and your works may be abolished.

Ezk_6:9  And they that escape of you shall remember me among the nations whither they shall be carried captives, because I am broken with their whorish heart, which hath departed from me, and with their eyes, which go a whoring after their idols: and they shall lothe themselves for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations.

Ezk_6:13  Then shall ye know that I am the LORD, when their slain men shall be among their idols round about their altars, upon every high hill, in all the tops of the mountains, and under every green tree, and under every thick oak, the place where they did offer sweet savour to all their idols.

Ezk_8:10  So I went in and saw; and behold every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, pourtrayed upon the wall round about.

Ezk_14:3  Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their heart, and put the stumblingblock of their iniquity before their face: should I be enquired of at all by them?

Ezk_14:4  Therefore speak unto them, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Every man of the house of Israel that setteth up his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumblingblock of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to the prophet; I the LORD will answer him that cometh according to the multitude of his idols;

Ezk_14:5  That I may take the house of Israel in their own heart, because they are all estranged from me through their idols.

Ezk_14:6  Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Repent, and turn yourselves from your idols; and turn away your faces from all your abominations.

Ezk_14:7  For every one of the house of Israel, or of the stranger that sojourneth in Israel, which separateth himself from me, and setteth up his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumblingblock of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to a prophet to enquire of him concerning me; I the LORD will answer him by myself:

Ezk_16:36  Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thy filthiness was poured out, and thy nakedness discovered through thy whoredoms with thy lovers, and with all the idols of thy abominations, and by the blood of thy children, which thou didst give unto them;

Ezk_18:6  And hath not eaten upon the mountains, neither hath lifted up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, neither hath defiled his neighbour's wife, neither hath come near to a menstruous woman,

Ezk_18:12  Hath oppressed the poor and needy, hath spoiled by violence, hath not restored the pledge, and hath lifted up his eyes to the idols, hath committed abomination,

Ezk_18:15  That hath not eaten upon the mountains, neither hath lifted up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, hath not defiled his neighbour's wife,

Ezk_20:7  Then said I unto them, Cast ye away every man the abominations of his eyes, and defile not yourselves with the idols of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.

Ezk_20:8  But they rebelled against me, and would not hearken unto me: they did not every man cast away the abominations of their eyes, neither did they forsake the idols of Egypt: then I said, I will pour out my fury upon them, to accomplish my anger against them in the midst of the land of Egypt.

Ezk_20:16  Because they despised my judgments, and walked not in my statutes, but polluted my sabbaths: for their heart went after their idols.

Ezk_20:18  But I said unto their children in the wilderness, Walk ye not in the statutes of your fathers, neither observe their judgments, nor defile yourselves with their idols:

Ezk_20:24  Because they had not executed my judgments, but had despised my statutes, and had polluted my sabbaths, and their eyes were after their fathers' idols.

Ezk_20:31  For when ye offer your gifts, when ye make your sons to pass through the fire, ye pollute yourselves with all your idols, even unto this day: and shall I be enquired of by you, O house of Israel? As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I will not be enquired of by you.

Ezk_20:39  As for you, O house of Israel, thus saith the Lord GOD; Go ye, serve ye every one his idols, and hereafter also, if ye will not hearken unto me: but pollute ye my holy name no more with your gifts, and with your

idols.

Ezk_22:3  Then say thou, Thus saith the Lord GOD, The city sheddeth blood in the midst of it, that her time may come, and maketh idols against herself to defile herself.

Ezk_22:4  Thou art become guilty in thy blood that thou hast shed; and hast defiled thyself in thine idols which thou hast made; and thou hast caused thy days to draw near, and art come even unto thy years: therefore have I made thee a reproach unto the heathen, and a mocking to all countries.

Ezk_23:7  Thus she committed her whoredoms with them, with all them that were the chosen men of Assyria, and with all on whom she doted: with all their idols she defiled herself.

Ezk_23:30  I will do these things unto thee, because thou hast gone a whoring after the heathen, and because thou art polluted with their idols.

Ezk_23:37  That they have committed adultery, and blood is in their hands, and with their idols have they committed adultery, and have also caused their sons, whom they bare unto me, to pass for them through the fire, to devour them.

Ezk_23:39  For when they had slain their children to their idols, then they came the same day into my sanctuary to profane it; and, lo, thus have they done in the midst of mine house.

Ezk_23:49  And they shall recompense your lewdness upon you, and ye shall bear the sins of your idols: and ye shall know that I am the Lord GOD.

Ezk_30:13  Thus saith the Lord GOD; I will also destroy the idols, and I will cause their images to cease out of Noph; and there shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt: and I will put a fear in the land of Egypt.

Ezk_33:25  Wherefore say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Ye eat with the blood, and lift up your eyes toward your idols, and shed blood: and shall ye possess the land?

Ezk_36:18  Wherefore I poured my fury upon them for the blood that they had shed upon the land, and for their idols wherewith they had polluted it:

Ezk_36:25  Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.

Ezk_37:23  Neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions: but I will save them out of all their dwellingplaces, wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them: so shall they be my people, and I will be their God.

Ezk_44:10  And the Levites that are gone away far from me, when Israel went astray, which went astray away from me after their idols; they shall even bear their iniquity.

Ezk_44:12  Because they ministered unto them before their idols, and caused the house of Israel to fall into iniquity; therefore have I lifted up mine hand against them, saith the Lord GOD, and they shall bear their iniquity.

Hos_4:17  Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone.

Hos_8:4  They have set up kings, but not by me: they have made princes, and I knew it not: of their silver and their gold have they made them idols, that they may be cut off.

Hos_13:2  And now they sin more and more, and have made them molten images of their silver, and idols according to their own understanding, all of it the work of the craftsmen: they say of them, Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves.

Hos_14:8  Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols? I have heard him, and observed him: I am like a green fir tree. From me is thy fruit found.

Mic_1:7  And all the graven images thereof shall be beaten to pieces, and all the hires thereof shall be burned with the fire, and all the idols thereof will I lay desolate: for she gathered it of the hire of an harlot, and they shall return to the hire of an harlot.

Hab_2:18  What profiteth the graven image that the maker thereof hath graven it; the molten image, and a teacher of lies, that the maker of his work trusteth therein, to make dumb idols?

Zec_10:2  For the idols have spoken vanity, and the diviners have seen a lie, and have told false dreams; they comfort in vain: therefore they went their way as a flock, they were troubled, because there was no shepherd.

Zec_13:2  And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the LORD of hosts, that I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they shall no more be remembered: and also I will cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to pass out of the land.

Act_15:20  But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood.

Act_15:29  That ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication: from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare ye well.

Act_21:25  As touching the Gentiles which believe, we have written and concluded that they observe no such thing, save only that they keep themselves from things offered to idols, and from blood, and from strangled, and from fornication.

Rom_2:22  Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege?

1Co_8:1  Now as touching things offered unto idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth.

1Co_8:4  As concerning therefore the eating of those things that are offered in sacrifice unto idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is none other God but one.

1Co_8:10  For if any man see thee which hast knowledge sit at meat in the idol's temple, shall not the conscience of him which is weak be emboldened to eat those things which are offered to idols;

1Co_10:19  What say I then? that the idol is any thing, or that which is offered in sacrifice (prayer) to idols is any thing?

1Co_10:28  But if any man say unto you, This is offered in sacrifice unto idols, eat not for his sake that shewed it, and for conscience sake: for the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof:

1Co_12:2  Ye know that ye were Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb idols, even as ye were led.

2Co_6:16  And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

1Th_1:9  For they themselves shew of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God;

1Jn_5:21  Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.

Rev_2:14  But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication.

Rev_2:20  Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols.

Rev_9:20  And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk

Men who lead out of pride and a desire for power cannot bring salvation. Do not place your trust in them; listen instead to the word of God.