90 Bible Verses about Bowing Before Idols

Exodus 20:5 ESV / 8 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,

Exodus 20:4 ESV / 8 helpful votes

“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.

1 Samuel 15:23 ESV / 6 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.”

Colossians 2:18 ESV / 5 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,

Isaiah 44:17 ESV / 5 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!”

2 Kings 18:4 ESV / 5 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).

Deuteronomy 4:16 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female,

Leviticus 26:1 ESV / 5 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.

Exodus 20:3 ESV / 5 helpful votes

“You shall have no other gods before me.

1 John 5:21 ESV / 4 helpful votes

Little children, keep yourselves from idols.

Exodus 20:1-26 ESV / 4 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 Peter 4:3 ESV / 3 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.

Colossians 3:5 ESV / 3 helpful votes

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

Ephesians 5:5 ESV / 3 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.

1 Corinthians 10:14 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.

Romans 1:22 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Claiming to be wise, they became fools,

John 5:21 ESV / 3 helpful votes

For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will.

John 4:23 ESV / 3 helpful votes

But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.

Matthew 2:11 ESV / 3 helpful votes

And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.

Ezekiel 14:3 ESV / 3 helpful votes

“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?

Isaiah 42:8 ESV / 3 helpful votes

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

Psalm 135:15-18 ESV / 3 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.

Psalm 115:4 ESV / 3 helpful votes

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

Psalm 95:6 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!

Deuteronomy 7:25 ESV / 3 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.

Deuteronomy 4:19 ESV / 3 helpful votes

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.

Leviticus 19:4 ESV / 3 helpful votes

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

Exodus 20:4-5 ESV / 3 helpful votes

“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,

Genesis 35:2 ESV / 3 helpful votes

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

Revelation 9:20 ESV / 2 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,

Revelation 2:14 ESV / 2 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.

James 1:26 ESV / 2 helpful votes

If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless.

1 Timothy 2:5 ESV / 2 helpful votes

For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,

Colossians 2:23 ESV / 2 helpful votes

These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.

Colossians 1:15 ESV / 2 helpful votes

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

1 Corinthians 12:1-2 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led.

1 Corinthians 6:9 ESV / 2 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,

Romans 12:1 ESV / 2 helpful votes

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

Romans 1:25 ESV / 2 helpful votes

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.

Romans 1:23 ESV / 2 helpful votes

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

Acts 20:35 ESV / 2 helpful votes

In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”

Acts 17:29 ESV / 2 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.

Acts 17:16 ESV / 2 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.

Acts 15:29 ESV / 2 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.”

Acts 10:26 ESV / 2 helpful votes

But Peter lifted him up, saying, “Stand up; I too am a man.”

John 14:15 ESV / 2 helpful votes

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

John 6:1-71 ESV / 2 helpful votes

After this Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. And a large crowd was following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick. Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples. Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” ...

John 5:39 ESV / 2 helpful votes

You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me,

John 3:16-17 ESV / 2 helpful votes

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Mark 7:7 ESV / 2 helpful votes

In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’

Mark 5:6 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him.

Matthew 15:25 ESV / 2 helpful votes

But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.”

Matthew 9:18 ESV / 2 helpful votes

While he was saying these things to them, behold, a ruler came in and knelt before him, saying, “My daughter has just died, but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.”

Matthew 8:2 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And behold, a leper came to him and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.”

Matthew 4:8-10 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’”

Habakkuk 2:18 ESV / 2 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!

Jonah 2:8 ESV / 2 helpful votes

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

Ezekiel 23:37 ESV / 2 helpful votes

For they have committed adultery, and blood is on their hands. With their idols they have committed adultery, and they have even offered up to them for food the children whom they had borne to me.

Jeremiah 50:38 ESV / 2 helpful votes

A drought against her waters, that they may be dried up! For it is a land of images, and they are mad over idols.

Jeremiah 19:4 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Because the people have forsaken me and have profaned this place by making offerings in it to other gods whom neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah have known; and because they have filled this place with the blood of innocents,

Isaiah 45:20 ESV / 2 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.

Isaiah 44:20 ESV / 2 helpful votes

He feeds on ashes; a deluded heart has led him astray, and he cannot deliver himself or say, “Is there not a lie in my right hand?”

Isaiah 44:13-19 ESV / 2 helpful votes

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. He cuts down cedars, or he chooses a cypress tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it. Then it becomes fuel for a man. He takes a part of it and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Also he makes a god and worships it; he makes it an idol and falls down before it. Half of it he burns in the fire. Over the half he eats meat; he roasts it and is satisfied. Also he warms himself and says, “Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire!” 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!” ...

Isaiah 42:17 ESV / 2 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.”

Isaiah 41:29 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Behold, they are all a delusion; their works are nothing; their metal images are empty wind.

Isaiah 40:18 ESV / 2 helpful votes

To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him?

Isaiah 31:7 ESV / 2 helpful votes

For in that day everyone shall cast away his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which your hands have sinfully made for you.

Psalm 115:4-8 ESV / 2 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.

Psalm 115:1-18 ESV / 2 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. ...

Psalm 106:37 ESV / 2 helpful votes

They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons;

Psalm 106:19 ESV / 2 helpful votes

They made a calf in Horeb and worshiped a metal image.

Psalm 97:7 ESV / 2 helpful votes

All worshipers of images are put to shame, who make their boast in worthless idols; worship him, all you gods!

Psalm 5:7 ESV / 2 helpful votes

But I, through the abundance of your steadfast love, will enter your house. I will bow down toward your holy temple in the fear of you.

Nehemiah 8:6 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, “Amen, Amen,” lifting up their hands. And they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground.

2 Kings 18:3-4 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, according to all that David his father had done. 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).

Joshua 23:7 ESV / 2 helpful votes

That you may not mix with these nations remaining among you or make mention of the names of their gods or swear by them or serve them or bow down to them,

Deuteronomy 32:17 ESV / 2 helpful votes

They sacrificed to demons that were no gods, to gods they had never known, to new gods that had come recently, whom your fathers had never dreaded.

Deuteronomy 27:15 ESV / 2 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.’

Deuteronomy 5:9 ESV / 2 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,

Deuteronomy 5:8 ESV / 2 helpful votes

“‘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.

Deuteronomy 4:15 ESV / 2 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,

Numbers 21:8-9 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.

Numbers 20:6 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Then Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the entrance of the tent of meeting and fell on their faces. And the glory of the Lord appeared to them,

Leviticus 17:7 ESV / 2 helpful votes

So they shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices to goat demons, after whom they whore. This shall be a statute forever for them throughout their generations.

Exodus 34:17 ESV / 2 helpful votes

“You shall not make for yourself any gods of cast metal.

Exodus 32:8 ESV / 2 helpful votes

They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’”

Exodus 20:3-6 ESV / 2 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.

Genesis 33:3 ESV / 2 helpful votes

He himself went on before them, bowing himself to the ground seven times, until he came near to his brother.

Genesis 31:19 ESV / 2 helpful votes

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

Genesis 22:5 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.”

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