100 Bible Verses about Idolatry

Exodus 20:3-6 ESV / 973 helpful votes

“You shall have no other gods before me. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

1 John 5:21 ESV / 666 helpful votes

Little children, keep yourselves from idols.

Colossians 3:5 ESV / 614 helpful votes

Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

Jonah 2:8 ESV / 582 helpful votes

Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love.

Isaiah 44:9-20 ESV / 544 helpful votes

All who fashion idols are nothing, and the things they delight in do not profit. Their witnesses neither see nor know, that they may be put to shame. Who fashions a god or casts an idol that is profitable for nothing? Behold, all his companions shall be put to shame, and the craftsmen are only human. Let them all assemble, let them stand forth. They shall be terrified; they shall be put to shame together. The ironsmith takes a cutting tool and works it over the coals. He fashions it with hammers and works it with his strong arm. He becomes hungry, and his strength fails; he drinks no water and is faint. The carpenter stretches a line; he marks it out with a pencil. He shapes it with planes and marks it with a compass. He shapes it into the figure of a man, with the beauty of a man, to dwell in a house. ...

Leviticus 19:4 ESV / 494 helpful votes

Do not turn to idols or make for yourselves any gods of cast metal: I am the Lord your God.

1 Corinthians 10:14 ESV / 480 helpful votes

Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.

Galatians 5:19-21 ESV / 420 helpful votes

Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Psalm 16:4 ESV / 299 helpful votes

The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply; their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names on my lips.

Psalm 135:15-18 ESV / 275 helpful votes

The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths, but do not speak; they have eyes, but do not see; they have ears, but do not hear, nor is there any breath in their mouths. Those who make them become like them, so do all who trust in them.

Revelation 9:20 ESV / 226 helpful votes

The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk,

Exodus 20:1-8 ESV / 215 helpful votes

And God spoke all these words, saying, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. “You shall have no other gods before me. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, ...

1 Samuel 15:23 ESV / 201 helpful votes

For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king.”

Jeremiah 11:12 ESV / 198 helpful votes

Then the cities of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem will go and cry to the gods to whom they make offerings, but they cannot save them in the time of their trouble.

Deuteronomy 12:32-13:18 ESV / 179 helpful votes

“Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it. “If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him. ...

Isaiah 45:20 ESV / 172 helpful votes

“Assemble yourselves and come; draw near together, you survivors of the nations! They have no knowledge who carry about their wooden idols, and keep on praying to a god that cannot save.

Galatians 4:8 ESV / 166 helpful votes

Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods.

1 Corinthians 10:7 ESV / 152 helpful votes

Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.”

Exodus 23:13 ESV / 145 helpful votes

“Pay attention to all that I have said to you, and make no mention of the names of other gods, nor let it be heard on your lips.

Deuteronomy 27:15 ESV / 138 helpful votes

“‘Cursed be the man who makes a carved or cast metal image, an abomination to the Lord, a thing made by the hands of a craftsman, and sets it up in secret.’ And all the people shall answer and say, ‘Amen.’

Acts 17:29 ESV / 132 helpful votes

Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man.

Judges 10:14 ESV / 128 helpful votes

Go and cry out to the gods whom you have chosen; let them save you in the time of your distress.”

Revelation 21:8 ESV / 125 helpful votes

But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

Romans 1:22-25 ESV / 124 helpful votes

Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

Jeremiah 7:18 ESV / 124 helpful votes

The children gather wood, the fathers kindle fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes for the queen of heaven. And they pour out drink offerings to other gods, to provoke me to anger.

Psalm 115:1-18 ESV / 121 helpful votes

Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness! Why should the nations say, “Where is their God?” Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases. Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see. ...

Leviticus 26:1 ESV / 117 helpful votes

“You shall not make idols for yourselves or erect an image or pillar, and you shall not set up a figured stone in your land to bow down to it, for I am the Lord your God.

1 Peter 4:3 ESV / 105 helpful votes

For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry.

Deuteronomy 4:15-19 ESV / 101 helpful votes

“Therefore watch yourselves very carefully. Since you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth. And beware lest you raise your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them, things that the Lord your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven.

Exodus 20:3-5 ESV / 101 helpful votes

“You shall have no other gods before me. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me,

Isaiah 2:8 ESV / 98 helpful votes

Their land is filled with idols; they bow down to the work of their hands, to what their own fingers have made.

Isaiah 44:17 ESV / 97 helpful votes

And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says, “Deliver me, for you are my god!”

Exodus 20:3 ESV / 97 helpful votes

“You shall have no other gods before me.

Deuteronomy 7:25 ESV / 92 helpful votes

The carved images of their gods you shall burn with fire. You shall not covet the silver or the gold that is on them or take it for yourselves, lest you be ensnared by it, for it is an abomination to the Lord your God.

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 ESV / 91 helpful votes

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

Romans 1:23 ESV / 90 helpful votes

And exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Habakkuk 2:18 ESV / 89 helpful votes

“What profit is an idol when its maker has shaped it, a metal image, a teacher of lies? For its maker trusts in his own creation when he makes speechless idols!

Jeremiah 10:3-16 ESV / 86 helpful votes

For the customs of the peoples are vanity. A tree from the forest is cut down and worked with an axe by the hands of a craftsman. They decorate it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so that it cannot move. Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field, and they cannot speak; they have to be carried, for they cannot walk. Do not be afraid of them, for they cannot do evil, neither is it in them to do good.” There is none like you, O Lord; you are great, and your name is great in might. Who would not fear you, O King of the nations? For this is your due; for among all the wise ones of the nations and in all their kingdoms there is none like you. ...

Revelation 2:14 ESV / 81 helpful votes

But I have a few things against you: you have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality.

Ephesians 5:5 ESV / 81 helpful votes

For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.

Isaiah 42:17 ESV / 81 helpful votes

They are turned back and utterly put to shame, who trust in carved idols, who say to metal images, “You are our gods.”

Colossians 2:18 ESV / 77 helpful votes

Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind,

1 Corinthians 6:9 ESV / 77 helpful votes

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality,

Jeremiah 1:16 ESV / 77 helpful votes

And I will declare my judgments against them, for all their evil in forsaking me. They have made offerings to other gods and worshiped the works of their own hands.

Genesis 31:19 ESV / 76 helpful votes

Laban had gone to shear his sheep, and Rachel stole her father's household gods.

1 Corinthians 10:19 ESV / 70 helpful votes

What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything?

1 Corinthians 5:11 ESV / 69 helpful votes

But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one.

Isaiah 2:20 ESV / 69 helpful votes

In that day mankind will cast away their idols of silver and their idols of gold, which they made for themselves to worship, to the moles and to the bats,

Micah 5:13 ESV / 68 helpful votes

And I will cut off your carved images and your pillars from among you, and you shall bow down no more to the work of your hands;

1 Corinthians 12:2 ESV / 66 helpful votes

You know that when you were pagans you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led.

Hosea 11:2 ESV / 66 helpful votes

The more they were called, the more they went away; they kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols.

Matthew 6:24 ESV / 65 helpful votes

“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

Isaiah 46:7 ESV / 62 helpful votes

They lift it to their shoulders, they carry it, they set it in its place, and it stands there; it cannot move from its place. If one cries to it, it does not answer or save him from his trouble.

Isaiah 42:8 ESV / 62 helpful votes

I am the Lord; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols.

Psalm 115:4-8 ESV / 62 helpful votes

Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see. They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell. They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat. Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.

Acts 15:29 ESV / 59 helpful votes

That you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”

Romans 1:1-32 ESV / 58 helpful votes

Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, ...

Exodus 34:14 ESV / 58 helpful votes

(for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God),

1 Corinthians 10:1-33 ESV / 57 helpful votes

For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. ...

Jeremiah 10:3-5 ESV / 57 helpful votes

For the customs of the peoples are vanity. A tree from the forest is cut down and worked with an axe by the hands of a craftsman. They decorate it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so that it cannot move. Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field, and they cannot speak; they have to be carried, for they cannot walk. Do not be afraid of them, for they cannot do evil, neither is it in them to do good.”

Exodus 20:5 ESV / 54 helpful votes

You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me,

Amos 4:4 ESV / 52 helpful votes

“Come to Bethel, and transgress; to Gilgal, and multiply transgression; bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three days;

Deuteronomy 7:26 ESV / 52 helpful votes

And you shall not bring an abominable thing into your house and become devoted to destruction like it. You shall utterly detest and abhor it, for it is devoted to destruction.

Matthew 6:33 ESV / 50 helpful votes

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Psalm 106:38 ESV / 50 helpful votes

They poured out innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood.

2 Kings 18:4 ESV / 50 helpful votes

He removed the high places and broke the pillars and cut down the Asherah. And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it (it was called Nehushtan).

2 Kings 17:35-38 ESV / 49 helpful votes

The Lord made a covenant with them and commanded them, “You shall not fear other gods or bow yourselves to them or serve them or sacrifice to them, but you shall fear the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt with great power and with an outstretched arm. You shall bow yourselves to him, and to him you shall sacrifice. And the statutes and the rules and the law and the commandment that he wrote for you, you shall always be careful to do. You shall not fear other gods, and you shall not forget the covenant that I have made with you. You shall not fear other gods,

Psalm 135:15 ESV / 48 helpful votes

The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of human hands.

Deuteronomy 5:7-9 ESV / 48 helpful votes

“‘You shall have no other gods before me. “‘You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,

Daniel 5:23 ESV / 46 helpful votes

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

Zephaniah 1:5 ESV / 45 helpful votes

Those who bow down on the roofs to the host of the heavens, those who bow down and swear to the Lord and yet swear by Milcom,

Habakkuk 2:19 ESV / 45 helpful votes

Woe to him who says to a wooden thing, Awake; to a silent stone, Arise! Can this teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in it.

Joshua 24:2 ESV / 45 helpful votes

And Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Long ago, your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates, Terah, the father of Abraham and of Nahor; and they served other gods.

Acts 17:16 ESV / 44 helpful votes

Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols.

Galatians 5:20 ESV / 43 helpful votes

Idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions,

Joshua 24:14 ESV / 42 helpful votes

“Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.

Exodus 32:6 ESV / 41 helpful votes

And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.

Jeremiah 32:35 ESV / 39 helpful votes

They built the high places of Baal in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to offer up their sons and daughters to Molech, though I did not command them, nor did it enter into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.

1 Kings 18:28 ESV / 39 helpful votes

And they cried aloud and cut themselves after their custom with swords and lances, until the blood gushed out upon them.

Deuteronomy 8:19 ESV / 39 helpful votes

And if you forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish.

Hosea 1:2 ESV / 38 helpful votes

When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.”

Ezekiel 20:31 ESV / 38 helpful votes

When you present your gifts and offer up your children in fire, you defile yourselves with all your idols to this day. And shall I be inquired of by you, O house of Israel? As I live, declares the Lord God, I will not be inquired of by you.

Jeremiah 19:13 ESV / 38 helpful votes

The houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah—all the houses on whose roofs offerings have been offered to all the host of heaven, and drink offerings have been poured out to other gods—shall be defiled like the place of Topheth.’”

Isaiah 57:6 ESV / 38 helpful votes

Among the smooth stones of the valley is your portion; they, they, are your lot; to them you have poured out a drink offering, you have brought a grain offering. Shall I relent for these things?

Exodus 20:3-4 ESV / 38 helpful votes

“You shall have no other gods before me. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

Isaiah 17:8 ESV / 37 helpful votes

He will not look to the altars, the work of his hands, and he will not look on what his own fingers have made, either the Asherim or the altars of incense.

Ezekiel 14:1-14 ESV / 36 helpful votes

Then certain of the elders of Israel came to me and sat before me. And the word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, these men have taken their idols into their hearts, and set the stumbling block of their iniquity before their faces. Should I indeed let myself be consulted by them? Therefore speak to them and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Any one of the house of Israel who takes his idols into his heart and sets the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and yet comes to the prophet, I the Lord will answer him as he comes with the multitude of his idols, that I may lay hold of the hearts of the house of Israel, who are all estranged from me through their idols. ...

Jeremiah 13:9-27 ESV / 36 helpful votes

“Thus says the Lord: Even so will I spoil the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem. This evil people, who refuse to hear my words, who stubbornly follow their own heart and have gone after other gods to serve them and worship them, shall be like this loincloth, which is good for nothing. For as the loincloth clings to the waist of a man, so I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to me, declares the Lord, that they might be for me a people, a name, a praise, and a glory, but they would not listen. “You shall speak to them this word: ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, “Every jar shall be filled with wine.”’ And they will say to you, ‘Do we not indeed know that every jar will be filled with wine?’ Then you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord: Behold, I will fill with drunkenness all the inhabitants of this land: the kings who sit on David's throne, the priests, the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem. ...

Isaiah 65:3 ESV / 35 helpful votes

A people who provoke me to my face continually, sacrificing in gardens and making offerings on bricks;

Isaiah 46:6 ESV / 35 helpful votes

Those who lavish gold from the purse, and weigh out silver in the scales, hire a goldsmith, and he makes it into a god; then they fall down and worship!

Jeremiah 51:17 ESV / 34 helpful votes

Every man is stupid and without knowledge; every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols, for his images are false, and there is no breath in them.

Deuteronomy 5:9 ESV / 34 helpful votes

You shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,

1 Corinthians 10:20-22 ESV / 33 helpful votes

No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?

Ezekiel 16:17 ESV / 33 helpful votes

You also took your beautiful jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself images of men, and with them played the whore.

Psalm 115:4 ESV / 33 helpful votes

Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands.

Deuteronomy 7:1-26 ESV / 33 helpful votes

“When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than you, and when the Lord your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them. You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods. Then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly. But thus shall you deal with them: you shall break down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and chop down their Asherim and burn their carved images with fire. ...

1 Peter 4:4 ESV / 32 helpful votes

With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you;

Micah 6:7 ESV / 32 helpful votes

Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”

Jeremiah 16:20 ESV / 32 helpful votes

Can man make for himself gods? Such are not gods!”

Jeremiah 8:19 ESV / 32 helpful votes

Behold, the cry of the daughter of my people from the length and breadth of the land: “Is the Lord not in Zion? Is her King not in her?” “Why have they provoked me to anger with their carved images and with their foreign idols?”

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