Right now, Nick and I are reading Habakkuk. Chapter two's passage about the futility of idols jumped out at me and inspired me to find other passages on the topic. Boy, does the Bible have some spice when it comes to idolatry! I also found it interesting how often idolatry is compared to both sexual sin and covetousness. Modern Christians may think of worshipping wooden or bronze idols as so far removed from us, that we look down on those Old Testament people who took part in it. But according to the New Testament, every time we indulge lustful thoughts or envy what someone else has, we are also committing idolatry.
Matthew 4:8-10 "Again, the devil took him to an exceedingly high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. He said to him, ‘I will give you all of these things, if you will fall down and worship me.’ Then Jesus said to him, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and you shall serve him only.’”
Exodus 20:3-5a “You shall have no other gods before me. 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: you shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them, for I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God…”
Exodus 32:4 “He received what they handed him, fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made it a molded calf. Then they said, ‘These are your gods, Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt.’”
1 Chronicles 16:25-26 “For great is Yahweh, and greatly to be praised. He also is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the peoples are idols, but Yahweh made the heavens.”
Psalm 115:4-8 “Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. They have mouths, but they don’t speak. They have eyes, but they don’t see. They have ears, but they don’t hear. They have noses, but they don’t smell. They have hands, but they don’t feel. They have feet, but they don’t walk, neither do they speak through their throat. Those who make them will be like them; yes, everyone who trusts in them.”
Isaiah 45:16-17 “They will be disappointed, yes, confounded, all of them. Those who are makers of idols will go into confusion together. Israel will be saved by Yahweh with an everlasting salvation. You will not be disappointed nor confounded to ages everlasting.”
Isaiah 46:1-2 “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. They stoop and they bow down together. They could not deliver the burden, but they have gone into captivity.”
Isaiah 48:5 “Therefore I have declared it to you from of old; before it came to pass I showed it to you; lest you should say, ‘My idol has done them. My engraved image and my molten image has commanded them.’”
Jeremiah 10:3-5, 14-15 “‘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’…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. They are vanity, a work of delusion. In the time of their visitation they will perish.”
Hosea 4:12 “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.”
Habakkuk 2:18-20 “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? 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. But Yahweh is in his holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before him!”
Acts 17:28-29 “‘For in him we live, move, and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also his offspring.’ 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.”
1 Corinthians 10:6-7 “Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted. Don’t be idolaters, as some of them were. As it is written, ‘The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.’”
Galatians 5:19-21 “Now the deeds of the flesh are obvious, which are: adultery, sexual immorality, uncleanness, lustfulness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strife, jealousies, outbursts of anger, rivalries, divisions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these; of which I forewarn you, even as I also forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit God’s Kingdom.”
Ephesians 5:5 “Know this for sure, that no sexually immoral person, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and God.”
Colossians 3:5 “Put to death therefore your members which are on the earth: sexual immorality, uncleanness, depraved passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.”
1 John 5:21 “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.”
*Unless otherwise noted, I use the World English Bible, because it is a free, public domain translation. Feel free to look up all the verses in your preferred translation! These lists are in no way comprehensive, and I am in no way an expert. These are simply passages I have found helpful in personal study. *
Nicole Jackson-Ozment