So ¹  he sent and had John beheaded in the prison.

Instead, this is what you must do to them: You must tear down their altars, shatter their sacred pillars, ¹  cut down their sacred Asherah poles, ²  and burn up their idols.

how they met you along the way and cut off all your stragglers in the rear of the march when you were exhausted and tired; they were unafraid of God. ¹ 

he tore down the altars and Asherah poles, demolished the idols, and smashed all the incense altars throughout the land of Israel. Then he returned to Jerusalem.

So tell them: ‘This is a nation that has not obeyed the Lord their God and has not accepted correction. Faithfulness is nowhere to be found in it. These people do not even profess it anymore. ¹ 

“Because of this, the Lord God of Israel who rules over all says, ‘I am determined to bring disaster on you, ¹  even to the point of destroying all the Judeans here. ² 

Then say, ‘O Lord, you have announced that you will destroy this place so that no people or animals live in it any longer. Certainly it will lie desolate forever!’

Pharaoh with his great army and mighty horde will not help ¹  him in battle, when siege ramps are erected and siege-walls are built to kill many people.

Shave your heads bald as you mourn for the children you love; ¹  shave your foreheads as bald ²  as an eagle, ³  for they are taken from you into exile.

“In that day,” says the Lord, “I will destroy ¹  your horses from your midst, and smash your chariots.

And if the Lord had not cut short those days, no one would be saved. But because of the elect, whom he chose, he has cut them ¹  short.

Now when they heard this, ¹  they were acutely distressed ²  and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “What should we do, brothers?”

So they slipped ¹  the anchors ²  and left them in the sea, at the same time loosening the linkage ³  that bound the steering oars ⁴  together. Then they hoisted ⁵  the foresail ⁶  to the wind and steered toward ⁷  the beach.

For I could wish ¹  that I myself were accursed – cut off from Christ – for the sake of my people, ²  my fellow countrymen, ³ 

And what I am doing I will continue to do, so that I may eliminate any opportunity for those who want a chance to be regarded as our equals ¹  in the things they boast about.

When a person touches anything unclean (whether human uncleanness, or an unclean animal, or an unclean detestable creature) ¹  and eats some of the meat of the peace offering sacrifice which belongs to the Lord, that person will be cut off from his people.’” ² 

Anyone who touches the corpse of any dead person and does not purify himself defiles the tabernacle of the Lord. And that person must be cut off from Israel, ¹  because the water of purification was not sprinkled on him. He will be unclean; his uncleanness remains on him.

That night the Lord said to him, “Take the bull from your father’s herd, as well as a second bull, one that is seven years old. ¹  Pull down your father’s Baal altar and cut down the nearby Asherah pole.

He eliminated the high places, smashed the sacred pillars to bits, and cut down the Asherah pole. ¹  He also demolished the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for up to that time ²  the Israelites had been offering incense to it; it was called Nehushtan. ³ 

King Asa also removed Maacah his grandmother ¹  from her position as queen mother ²  because she had made a loathsome Asherah pole. Asa cut down her Asherah pole and crushed and burned it in the Kidron Valley.