Isaiah 44:14

Then Solomon offered burnt offerings to Yahweh on Yahweh’s altar, which he had built before the porch,

Abijah pursued Jeroboam, and took cities from him, Bethel with its villages, Jeshanah with its villages, and Ephron with its villages.

He placed forces in all the fortified cities of Judah, and set garrisons in the land of Judah, and in the cities of Ephraim, which Asa his father had taken.

They have ears, but they can’t hear, neither is there any breath in their mouths.

who tell wood, ‘You are my father,’ and a stone, ‘You have given birth to me,’ for they have turned their back to me, and not their face; but in the time of their trouble they will say, ‘Arise, and save us!’

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

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.”

Their deeds won’t allow them to turn to their God; for the spirit of prostitution is within them, and they don’t know Yahweh.

Then he made an altar of bronze, twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and ten cubits high.

He who is too impoverished for such an offering chooses a tree that will not rot. He seeks a skillful workman to set up a carved image for him that will not be moved.

So the carpenter encourages the goldsmith. He who smoothes with the hammer encourages him who strikes the anvil, saying of the soldering, “It is good;” and he fastens it with nails, that it might not totter.

He feeds on ashes. A deceived heart has turned him aside; and he can’t deliver his soul, nor say, “Isn’t there a lie in my right hand?”

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.

Among the smooth stones of the valley is your portion. They, they are your lot. You have even poured a drink offering to them. You have offered an offering. Shall I be appeased for these things?

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.

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you, that you may be no priest to me. Because you have forgotten your God’s law, I will also forget your children.

“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;

They shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices to the goat idols, after which they play the prostitute. This shall be a statute forever to them throughout their generations.’

Therefore you shall keep my requirements, that you do not practice any of these abominable customs which were practiced before you, and that you do not defile yourselves with them. I am Yahweh your God.’ ”

then I will set my face against that man and against his family, and will cut him off, and all who play the prostitute after him to play the prostitute with Molech, from among their people.

“ ‘The person that turns to those who are mediums and wizards, to play the prostitute after them, I will even set my face against that person, and will cut him off from among his people.

It shall be to you for a fringe, that you may see it, and remember all Yahweh’s commandments, and do them; and that you don’t follow your own heart and your own eyes, after which you used to play the prostitute;

‘Cursed is the man who makes an engraved or molten image, an abomination to Yahweh, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and sets it up in secret.’ All the people shall answer and say, ‘Amen.’

Yahweh said to Moses, “Behold, you shall sleep with your fathers. This people will rise up and play the prostitute after the strange gods of the land where they go to be among them, and will forsake me and break my covenant which I have made with them.

They put away the foreign gods from among them and served Yahweh; and his soul was grieved for the misery of Israel.

They said to him, “Please ask counsel of God, that we may know whether our way which we go shall be prosperous.”

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.

For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.

Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, on the mountain that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech the abomination of the children of Ammon.

He did very abominably in following idols, according to all that the Amorites did, whom Yahweh cast out before the children of Israel.

He walked in all the way of Asa his father. He didn’t turn away from it, doing that which was right in Yahweh’s eyes. However the high places were not taken away. The people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.

The bronze altar, which was before Yahweh, he brought from the front of the house, from between his altar and Yahweh’s house, and put it on the north side of his altar.

King Ahaz commanded Urijah the priest, saying, “On the great altar burn the morning burnt offering, the evening meal offering, the king’s burnt offering, his meal offering, with the burnt offering of all the people of the land, their meal offering, and their drink offerings; and sprinkle on it all the blood of the burnt offering, and all the blood of the sacrifice; but the bronze altar will be for me to inquire by.”

But if you tell me, ‘We trust in Yahweh our God;’ isn’t that he whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and has said to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem?’

The king defiled the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the right hand of the mountain of corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Sidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Milcom the abomination of the children of Ammon.

When Asa heard these words, and the prophecy of Oded the prophet, he took courage, and put away the abominations out of all the land of Judah and Benjamin, and out of the cities which he had taken from the hill country of Ephraim; and he renewed Yahweh’s altar that was before Yahweh’s porch.

but have walked in the way of the kings of Israel, and have made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to play the prostitute like Ahab’s house did, and also have slain your brothers of your father’s house, who were better than yourself,

Then they went in to Hezekiah the king within the palace, and said, “We have cleansed all Yahweh’s house, including the altar of burnt offering with all its vessels, and the table of show bread with all its vessels.

For, behold, those who are far from you shall perish. You have destroyed all those who are unfaithful to you.

Let all them be shamed who serve engraved images, who boast in their idols. Worship him, all you gods!

Woe to those who decree unrighteous decrees, and to the writers who write oppressive decrees;

A workman has cast an image, and the goldsmith overlays it with gold, and casts silver chains for it.

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!”

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.

Awake, awake, put on strength, arm of Yahweh! Awake, as in the days of old, the generations of ancient times. Isn’t it you who cut Rahab in pieces, who pierced the monster?

who sit among the graves, and spend nights in secret places; who eat pig’s meat, and broth of abominable things is in their vessels;

Because she took her prostitution lightly, the land was polluted, and she committed adultery with stones and with wood.

“If you will return, Israel,” says Yahweh, “if you will return to me, and if you will put away your abominations out of my sight; then you will not be removed;

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

Every man has become brutish and without knowledge. Every goldsmith is disappointed by his engraved image; for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them.

First I will recompense their iniquity and their sin double, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable things, and have filled my inheritance with their abominations.”

Therefore behold, the days come that I will execute judgment on the engraved images of Babylon; and her whole land will be confounded. All her slain will fall in the middle of her.

So I went in and looked, and saw every form of creeping things, abominable animals, and all the idols of the house of Israel, portrayed around on the wall.

I said to them, ‘Each of you throw away the abominations of his eyes. Don’t defile yourselves with the idols of Egypt. I am Yahweh your God.’

For the king of Babylon stood at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination. He shook the arrows back and forth. He consulted the teraphim. He looked in the liver.

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.

Therefore at that time, when all the peoples heard the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe, and all kinds of music, all the peoples, the nations, and the languages, fell down and worshiped the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up.

But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image which you have set up.”

Therefore I make a decree, that every people, nation, and language, which speak anything evil against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made a dunghill; because there is no other god who is able to deliver like this.”

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.

Prostitution, wine, and new wine take away understanding.

My people consult with their wooden idol, and answer to a stick of wood. Indeed the spirit of prostitution has led them astray, and they have been unfaithful to their God.

“Though you, Israel, play the prostitute, yet don’t let Judah offend; and don’t come to Gilgal, neither go up to Beth Aven, nor swear, ‘As Yahweh lives.’

They are all adulterers. They are burning like an oven that the baker stops stirring, from the kneading of the dough, until it is leavened.

Don’t rejoice, Israel, to jubilation like the nations; for you were unfaithful to your God. You love the wages of a prostitute at every grain threshing floor.

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.

If a man walking in a spirit of falsehood lies: “I will prophesy to you of wine and of strong drink;” he would be the prophet of this people.

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.

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.

From there the brothers, when they heard of us, came to meet us as far as The Market of Appius and The Three Taverns. When Paul saw them, he thanked God and took courage.

Therefore I was displeased with that generation, and said, ‘They always err in their heart, but they didn’t know my ways.’

but into the second the high priest alone, once in the year, not without blood, which he offers for himself, and for the errors of the people.

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.

We are of God. He who knows God listens to us. He who is not of God doesn’t listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.

It was given to him to give breath to it, to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause as many as wouldn’t worship the image of the beast to be killed.

The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of the sexual immorality of the earth.

Arise, Yahweh! Save me, my God! For you have struck all of my enemies on the cheek bone. You have broken the teeth of the wicked.