but the chief baker he impaled, just as Joseph had predicted. ¹ 

He rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had destroyed; he set up altars for Baal and made an Asherah pole just like King Ahab of Israel had done. He bowed down to all the stars in the sky ¹  and worshiped ²  them.

And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet blast, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven ¹  to the other.

It happened just as he had said ¹  to us – Pharaoh ²  restored me to my office, but he impaled the baker.” ³ 

He tore down the quarters ¹  of the male cultic prostitutes in the Lord’s temple, where women were weaving shrines ²  for Asherah.

He smashed the sacred pillars to bits, cut down the Asherah pole, and filled those shrines ¹  with human bones.

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 

He put an idol of Asherah he had made in the temple, about which the Lord had said to David and to his son Solomon, “This temple in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, will be my permanent home. ¹ 

Let’s go to the Jordan. Each of us will get a log from there and we will build a meeting place for ourselves there.” He said, “Go.”

Even if only a tenth of the people remain in the land, it will again be destroyed, ¹  like one of the large sacred trees ²  or an Asherah pole, when a sacred pillar on a high place is thrown down. ³  That sacred pillar symbolizes the special chosen family.” ⁴ 

One thousand will scurry at the battle cry of one enemy soldier; ¹  at the battle cry of five enemy soldiers you will all run away, ²  until the remaining few are as isolated ³  as a flagpole on a mountaintop or a signal flag on a hill.”

So in this way Jacob’s sin will be forgiven, ¹  and this is how they will show they are finished sinning: ²  They will make all the stones of the altars ³  like crushed limestone, and the Asherah poles and the incense altars will no longer stand. ⁴