1 Kings 18:26

Don’t be rash with your mouth, and don’t let your heart be hasty to utter anything before God; for God is in heaven, and you on earth. Therefore let your words be few.

For in the multitude of dreams there are vanities, as well as in many words; but you must fear God.

Don’t turn away to go after vain things which can’t profit or deliver, for they are vain.

At the time of the evening offering, Elijah the prophet came near, and said, “Yahweh, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your word.

They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of bronze, of iron, of wood, and of stone.

Now concerning things sacrificed to idols: We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.

The ship rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on Ararat’s mountains.

Hear, Israel: Yahweh is our God. Yahweh is one.

Then Yahweh’s fire fell, and consumed the burnt offering, the wood, the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench.

When all the people saw it, they fell on their faces. They said, “Yahweh, he is God! Yahweh, he is God!”

They abandoned all the commandments of Yahweh their God, and made molten images for themselves, even two calves, and made an Asherah, and worshiped all the army of the sky, and served Baal.

He removed the high places, and broke the pillars, and cut down the Asherah. He also broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, because in those days the children of Israel burned incense to it; and he called it Nehushtan.

in whose hand is the life of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind?

For you are great, and do wondrous things. You are God alone.

They have mouths, but they don’t speak. They have eyes, but they don’t see.

Behold, you are nothing, and your work is nothing. He who chooses you is an abomination.

Who has fashioned a god, or molds an image that is profitable for nothing?

The priests didn’t say, ‘Where is Yahweh?’ and those who handle the law didn’t know me. The rulers also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal and followed things that do not profit.

“But where are your gods that you have made for yourselves? Let them arise, if they can save you in the time of your trouble; for you have as many gods as you have towns, O Judah.

Yahweh, I know that the way of man is not in himself. It is not in man who walks to direct his steps.

“Indeed they don’t know to do right,” says Yahweh, “Who hoard plunder and loot in their palaces.”

“Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to the living God, who made the sky, the earth, the sea, and all that is in them;

You see and hear that not at Ephesus alone, but almost throughout all Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away many people, saying that they are no gods that are made with hands.

As we labored exceedingly with the storm, the next day they began to throw things overboard.

yet to us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we live through him.

What am I saying then? That a thing sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything?

For they themselves report concerning us what kind of a reception we had from you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God,

For we have spent enough of our past time doing the desire of the Gentiles, and having walked in lewdness, lusts, drunken binges, orgies, carousings, and abominable idolatries.

The rest of mankind, who were not killed with these plagues, didn’t repent of the works of their hands, that they wouldn’t worship demons, and the idols of gold, and of silver, and of brass, and of stone, and of wood; which can’t see, hear, or walk.

A son was also born to Seth, and he named him Enosh. At that time men began to call on Yahweh’s name.

“Don’t make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, lest they play the prostitute after their gods, and sacrifice to their gods, and one call you and you eat of his sacrifice;

Know therefore today, and take it to heart, that Yahweh himself is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath. There is no one else.

You shall not plant for yourselves an Asherah of any kind of tree beside Yahweh your God’s altar, which you shall make for yourselves.

and has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun, or the moon, or any of the stars of the sky, which I have not commanded,

When the people of Ashdod arose early on the next day, behold, Dagon had fallen on his face to the ground before Yahweh’s ark. They took Dagon and set him in his place again.

Therefore neither the priests of Dagon nor any who come into Dagon’s house step on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod to this day.

The children of Israel said to Samuel, “Don’t stop crying to Yahweh our God for us, that he will save us out of the hand of the Philistines.”

He set the engraved image of Asherah that he had made in the house of which Yahweh said to David and to Solomon his son, “In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my name forever;

they came near to Zerubbabel, and to the heads of fathers’ households, and said to them, “Let us build with you; for we seek your God, as you do; and we have been sacrificing to him since the days of Esar Haddon king of Assyria, who brought us up here.”

Doesn’t he see my ways, and count all my steps?

Declare the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that you are gods. Yes, do good, or do evil, that we may be dismayed, and see it together.

“Those who trust in engraved images, who tell molten images, ‘You are our gods,’ will be turned back. They will be utterly disappointed.

Let all the nations be gathered together, and let the peoples be assembled. Who among them can declare this, and show us former things? Let them bring their witnesses, that they may be justified, or let them hear, and say, “That is true.”

Bel bows down. Nebo stoops. Their idols are carried by animals, and on the livestock. The things that you carried around are heavy loads, a burden for the weary.

For the customs of the peoples are vanity; for one cuts a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman with the ax.

They deck it with silver and with gold. They fasten it with nails and with hammers, so that it can’t move.

They are like a palm tree, of turned work, and don’t speak. They must be carried, because they can’t move. Don’t be afraid of them; for they can’t do evil, neither is it in them to do good.”

But they are together brutish and foolish, instructed by idols! It is just wood.

“Call together the archers against Babylon, all those who bend the bow. Encamp against her all around. Let none of it escape. Pay her back according to her work. According to all that she has done, do to her; for she has been proud against Yahweh, against the Holy One of Israel.

“Set up a standard in the land! Blow the trumpet among the nations! Prepare the nations against her! Call together against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz! Appoint a marshal against her! Cause the horses to come up as the rough canker worm!

Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven; for all his works are truth, and his ways justice; and those who walk in pride he is able to abase.

Woe to him who says to the wood, ‘Awake!’ or to the mute stone, ‘Arise!’ Shall this teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all within it.

For the teraphim have spoken vanity, and the diviners have seen a lie; and they have told false dreams. They comfort in vain. Therefore they go their way like sheep. They are oppressed, because there is no shepherd.

He left them again, went away, and prayed a third time, saying the same words.

But they worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’

He said these things, and after that, he said to them, “Our friend, Lazarus, has fallen asleep, but I am going so that I may awake him out of sleep.”

But God turned, and gave them up to serve the army of the sky, as it is written in the book of the prophets, ‘Did you offer to me slain animals and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?

When they had eaten enough, they lightened the ship, throwing out the wheat into the sea.

who exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

Some of you were such, but you were washed. But you were sanctified. But you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and in the Spirit of our God.

However at that time, not knowing God, you were in bondage to those who by nature are not gods.

Therefore remember that once you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called “uncircumcision” by that which is called “circumcision” (in the flesh, made by hands),

For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,

The other lamb you shall offer at evening, and shall do to it according to the meal offering of the morning and according to its drink offering, for a pleasant aroma, an offering made by fire to Yahweh.

and lest you lift up your eyes to the sky, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, even all the army of the sky, you are drawn away and worship them, and serve them, which Yahweh your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole sky.

All the people said to Samuel, “Pray for your servants to Yahweh your God, that we not die; for we have added to all our sins this evil, to ask for a king.”

On the next day, an evil spirit from God came mightily on Saul, and he prophesied in the middle of the house. David played with his hand, as he did day by day. Saul had his spear in his hand;

Ahab made the Asherah; and Ahab did more yet to provoke Yahweh, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him.

When midday was past, they prophesied until the time of the evening offering; but there was no voice, no answer, and nobody paid attention.

You have indeed struck Edom, and your heart has lifted you up. Enjoy the glory of it, and stay at home; for why should you meddle to your harm, that you fall, even you, and Judah with you?’ ”

David built an altar to Yahweh there, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and called on Yahweh; and he answered him from the sky by fire on the altar of burnt offering.

For he built again the high places which Hezekiah his father had broken down; and he raised up altars for the Baals, made Asheroth, and worshiped all the army of the sky, and served them.

You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.

A man’s steps are from Yahweh; how then can man understand his way?

For there will be a day of Yahweh of Armies for all that is proud and arrogant, and for all that is lifted up; and it shall be brought low:

and have cast their gods into the fire; for they were no gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone; therefore they have destroyed them.

God Yahweh, he who created the heavens and stretched them out, he who spread out the earth and that which comes out of it, he who gives breath to its people and spirit to those who walk in it, says:

Should evil be recompensed for good? For they have dug a pit for my soul. Remember how I stood before you to speak good for them, to turn away your wrath from them.

“Make him drunken; for he magnified himself against Yahweh. Moab will wallow in his vomit, and he also will be in derision.

Listen to those who flee and escape out of the land of Babylon, to declare in Zion the vengeance of Yahweh our God, the vengeance of his temple.

Then the mariners were afraid, and every man cried to his god. They threw the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten the ship. But Jonah had gone down into the innermost parts of the ship, and he was laying down, and was fast asleep.

“Now, please entreat the favor of God, that he may be gracious to us. With this, will he accept any of you?” says Yahweh of Armies.

Therefore concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that no idol is anything in the world, and that there is no other God but one.

You know that when you were heathen, you were led away to those mute idols, however you might be led.

You call on the name of your god, and I will call on Yahweh’s name. The God who answers by fire, let him be God.” All the people answered, “What you say is good.”

Gehazi went ahead of them, and laid the staff on the child’s face; but there was no voice and no hearing. Therefore he returned to meet him, and told him, “The child has not awakened.”

For he built again the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; and he raised up altars for Baal, and made an Asherah, as Ahab king of Israel did, and worshiped all the army of the sky, and served them.

The king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the threshold, to bring out of Yahweh’s temple all the vessels that were made for Baal, for the Asherah, and for all the army of the sky, and he burned them outside of Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron, and carried their ashes to Bethel.

That your beloved may be delivered, save with your right hand, and answer us.

As he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons struck him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Ararat. Esar Haddon his son reigned in his place.

The rest of it he makes into a god, even his engraved image. He bows down to it and worships, and prays to it, and says, “Deliver me; for you are my god!”

“Assemble yourselves and come. Draw near together, you who have escaped from the nations. Those have no knowledge who carry the wood of their engraved image, and pray to a god that can’t save.

They bear it on their shoulder. They carry it, and set it in its place, and it stands there. It cannot move from its place. Yes, one may cry to it, yet it can not answer. It cannot save him out of his trouble.

But if they are prophets, and if Yahweh’s word is with them, let them now make intercession to Yahweh of Armies, that the vessels which are left in Yahweh’s house, in the house of the king of Judah, and at Jerusalem, don’t go to Babylon.

but have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of his house before you, and you and your lords, your wives, and your concubines, have drunk wine from them. You have praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood, and stone, which don’t see, or hear, or know; and you have not glorified the God in whose hand your breath is, and whose are all your ways.

“What value does the engraved image have, that its maker has engraved it; the molten image, even the teacher of lies, that he who fashions its form trusts in it, to make mute idols?

In that day, I will punish all those who leap over the threshold, who fill their master’s house with violence and deceit.

In praying, don’t use vain repetitions, as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their much speaking.

But when they perceived that he was a Jew, all with one voice for a time of about two hours cried out, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”