Acts 19:26

To whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare to him?

Some pour out gold from the bag, and weigh silver in the balance. They hire a goldsmith, and he makes it a god. They fall down— yes, they worship.

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.

Blessed are you by Yahweh, who made heaven and earth.

The idols shall utterly pass away.

“Ah Lord Yahweh! Behold, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for you.

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

But I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and not to God, and I don’t desire that you would have fellowship with demons.

“You shall not make for yourselves an idol, nor any image of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:

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

Yahweh will bring you, and your king whom you will set over yourselves, to a nation that you have not known, you nor your fathers. There you will serve other gods of wood and stone.

Yahweh will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth. There you will serve other gods which you have not known, you nor your fathers, even wood and stone.

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

He made houses of high places, and made priests from among all the people, who were not of the sons of Levi.

For the Levites left their pasture lands and their possession, and came to Judah and Jerusalem; for Jeroboam and his sons cast them off, that they should not execute the priest’s office to Yahweh.

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.

“How can I pardon you? Your children have forsaken me, and sworn by what are no gods. When I had fed them to the full, they committed adultery, and assembled themselves in troops at the prostitutes’ houses.

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.”

There is silver beaten into plates, which is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, the work of the engraver and of the hands of the goldsmith. Their clothing is blue and purple. They are all the work of skillful men.

Are there any among the vanities of the nations that can cause rain? Or can the sky give showers? Aren’t you he, Yahweh our God? Therefore we will wait for you; for you have made all these things.

Therefore I will cast you out of this land into the land that you have not known, neither you nor your fathers. There you will serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.’

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.

They have set up kings, but not by me. They have made princes, and I didn’t approve. Of their silver and their gold they have made themselves idols, that they may be cut off.

Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

But Peter raised him up, saying, “Stand up! I myself am also a man.”

Being then the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold, or silver, or stone, engraved by art and design of man.

When they had come to him, he said to them, “You yourselves know, from the first day that I set foot in Asia, how I was with you all the time,

Therefore watch, remembering that for a period of three years I didn’t cease to admonish everyone night and day with tears.

and traded the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, four-footed animals, and creeping things.

For seeing that in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom didn’t know God, it was God’s good pleasure through the foolishness of the preaching to save those who believe.

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.

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?

that you were at that time separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

not in the passion of lust, even as the Gentiles who don’t know God,

For to this end we both labor and suffer reproach, because we have set our trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe.

Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it didn’t rain on the earth for three years and six months.

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.

He said with a loud voice, “Fear the Lord, and give him glory; for the hour of his judgment has come. Worship him who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and the springs of waters!”

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Pharaoh said, “Who is Yahweh, that I should listen to his voice to let Israel go? I don’t know Yahweh, and moreover I will not let Israel go.”

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.

Joshua said, “By this you shall know that the living God is among you, and that he will without fail drive the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Hivite, the Perizzite, the Girgashite, the Amorite, and the Jebusite out from before you.

So the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold; and he said to them, “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Look and behold your gods, Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”

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.

The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands.

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:

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

Has a nation changed its gods, which really are no gods? But my people have changed their glory for that which doesn’t profit.

They are vanity, a work of delusion. In the time of their visitation they will perish.

Yahweh, my strength, and my stronghold, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the nations will come to you from the ends of the earth, and will say, “Our fathers have inherited nothing but lies, vanity and things in which there is no profit.

Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold, whose height was sixty cubits, and its width six cubits. He set it up in the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon.

Now if you are ready whenever you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe, and all kinds of music to fall down and worship the image which I have made, good; but if you don’t worship, you shall be cast the same hour into the middle of a burning fiery furnace. Who is that god that will deliver you out of my hands?”

Yahweh will be awesome to them, for he will famish all the gods of the land. Men will worship him, everyone from his place, even all the shores of the nations.

It will come to pass in that day, says Yahweh of Armies, that I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they will be remembered no more. I will also cause the prophets and the spirit of impurity to pass out of the land.

The God who made the world and all things in it, he, being Lord of heaven and earth, doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands.

Now a certain Jew named Apollos, an Alexandrian by race, an eloquent man, came to Ephesus. He was mighty in the Scriptures.

While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul, having passed through the upper country, came to Ephesus and found certain disciples.

For Paul had determined to sail past Ephesus, that he might not have to spend time in Asia; for he was hastening, if it were possible for him, to be in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost.

For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity, that they may be without excuse.

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.

But I will stay at Ephesus until Pentecost,

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, to the saints who are at Ephesus, and the faithful in Christ Jesus:

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),

being darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardening of their hearts.

punishing those who don’t know God, and to those who don’t obey the Good News of our Lord Jesus,

As I urged you when I was going into Macedonia, stay at Ephesus that you might command certain men not to teach a different doctrine,

(the Lord grant to him to find the Lord’s mercy in that day); and in how many things he served at Ephesus, you know very well.

“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, the Holy One, to receive the glory, the honor, and the power, for you created all things, and because of your desire they existed, and were created!”

There you shall serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.

Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands.

“You shall say this to them: ‘The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth will perish from the earth, and from under the heavens.’ ”

The Lord’s word was spread abroad throughout all the region.

“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;

This continued for two years, so that all those who lived in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks.

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.

Then Jacob said to his household, and to all who were with him, “Put away the foreign gods that are among you, purify yourselves, change your garments.

When the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we don’t know what has become of him.”

“You shall make no cast idols for yourselves.

He said, “You have taken away my gods which I made, and the priest, and have gone away! What more do I have? How can you ask me, ‘What ails you?’ ”

For all the gods of the peoples are idols, but Yahweh made the heavens.

Haven’t you driven out the priests of Yahweh, the sons of Aaron, and the Levites, and made priests for yourselves according to the ways of the peoples of other lands? Whoever comes to consecrate himself with a young bull and seven rams may be a priest of those who are no gods.

Don’t you know what I and my fathers have done to all the peoples of the lands? Were the gods of the nations of the lands in any way able to deliver their land out of my hand?

Now therefore don’t let Hezekiah deceive you, nor persuade you in this way. Don’t believe him, for no god of any nation or kingdom was able to deliver his people out of my hand, and out of the hand of my fathers. How much less will your God deliver you out of my hand?”

For all the gods of the peoples are idols, but Yahweh made the heavens.

Should a man make to himself gods which yet are no gods?”

For this is even from Israel! The workman made it, and it is no God; indeed, the calf of Samaria shall be broken in pieces.

But some of those who were of the synagogue called “The Libertines”, and of the Cyrenians, of the Alexandrians, and of those of Cilicia and Asia arose, disputing with Stephen.

He reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath and persuaded Jews and Greeks.

He came to Ephesus, and he left them there; but he himself entered into the synagogue, and reasoned with the Jews.

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!”

When the town clerk had quieted the multitude, he said, “You men of Ephesus, what man is there who doesn’t know that the city of the Ephesians is temple keeper of the great goddess Artemis, and of the image which fell down from Zeus?

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

Knowing therefore the fear of the Lord, we persuade men, but we are revealed to God, and I hope that we are revealed also in your consciences.

as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and not killed;

for he who worked through Peter in the apostleship with the circumcised also worked through me with the Gentiles—

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

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,