Bible Verses About Idolatry

saying to Aharon, ‘Make us some gods to lead us; because this Moshe, who led us out of Egypt — we don’t know what has become of him.’

That was when they made an idol in the shape of a calf and offered a sacrifice to it and held a celebration in honor of what they had made with their own hands.

When the crowds saw what Sha’ul had done, they began to shout in the Lycaonian language, “The gods have come down to us in the form of men!”

They began calling Bar-Nabba “Zeus” and Sha’ul “Hermes,” since he did most of the talking;

and the priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the city, brought bulls and wreaths to the city gates, intending to offer a sacrifice to them with the people.

When the emissaries Bar-Nabba and Sha’ul heard of it, they tore their clothes and ran into the crowd, shouting,

“Men! Why are you doing this? We’re just men, human like you! We are announcing Good News to you — turn from these worthless things to the living God who made heaven and earth and the sea and everything in them!

Sha’ul stood up in the Council meeting and said, “Men of Athens: I see how very religious you are in every way!

For as I was walking around, looking at your shrines, I even found an altar which had been inscribed, ‘To An Unknown God.’ So, the one whom you are already worshipping in ignorance — this is the one I proclaim to you.

because, although they know who God is, they do not glorify him as God or thank him. On the contrary, they have become futile in their thinking; and their undiscerning hearts have become darkened.

Claiming to be wise, they have become fools!

In fact, they have exchanged the glory of the immortal God for mere images, like a mortal human being, or like birds, animals or reptiles!

This is why God has given them up to degrading passions; so that their women exchange natural sexual relations for unnatural;

and likewise the men, giving up natural relations with the opposite sex, burn with passion for one another, men committing shameful acts with other men and receiving in their own persons the penalty appropriate to their perversion.

In other words, since they have not considered God worth knowing, God has given them up to worthless ways of thinking; so that they do improper things.

They are filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and vice; stuffed with jealousy, murder, quarrelling, dishonesty and ill-will; they are gossips,

slanderers, haters of God; they are insolent, arrogant and boastful; they plan evil schemes; they disobey their parents;

they are brainless, faithless, heartless and ruthless.

They know well enough God’s righteous decree that people who do such things deserve to die; yet not only do they keep doing them, but they applaud others who do the same.

Another angel, a third one, followed them and said in a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives the mark on his forehead or on his hand,

he will indeed drink the wine of God’s fury poured undiluted into the cup of his rage. He will be tormented by fire and sulfur before the holy angels and before the Lamb,

and the smoke from their tormenting goes up forever and ever. They have no rest, day or night, those who worship the beast and its image and those who receive the mark of its name.”