Deuteronomy 12:3
12:3 You must tear down their altars, shatter their sacred pillars, 1 burn up their sacred Asherah poles, 2 and cut down the images of their gods; you must eliminate their very memory from that place.
Deuteronomy 29:20
29:20 The Lord will be unwilling to forgive him, and his intense anger 3 will rage 4 against that man; all the curses 5 written in this scroll will fall upon him 6 and the Lord will obliterate his name from memory. 7
1 sn Sacred pillars. These are the stelae (stone pillars; the Hebrew term is מַצֵּבֹת, matsevot) associated with Baal worship, perhaps to mark a spot hallowed by an alleged visitation of the gods. See also Deut 7:5.
2 sn Sacred Asherah poles. The Hebrew term (plural) is אֲשֵׁרִים (’asherim). See note on the word “(leafy) tree” in v. 2, and also Deut 7:5.
3 tn Heb “the wrath of the Lord and his zeal.” The expression is a hendiadys, a figure in which the second noun becomes adjectival to the first.
4 tn Heb “smoke,” or “smolder.”
5 tn Heb “the entire oath.”
6 tn Or “will lie in wait against him.”
7 tn Heb “blot out his name from under the sky.”