The Lord ¹  said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord. Look, the Lord is ready to pass by.” A very powerful wind went before the Lord, digging into the mountain and causing landslides, ²  but the Lord was not in the wind. After the windstorm there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.

“Indeed, ¹  long ago you threw off my authority and refused to be subject to me. ²  You said, ‘I will not serve you.’ ³  Instead, you gave yourself to other gods on every high hill and under every green tree, like a prostitute sprawls out before her lovers. ⁴ 

She grabbed him by his outer garment, saying, “Have sex with me!” But he left his outer garment in her hand and ran ¹  outside. ² 

He struck them down and defeated them. ¹  Then he went down and lived for a time in the cave in the cliff of Etam.

So David’s servants went and spoke all these words to Nabal in David’s name. Then they paused.

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

He removed the pagan altars ¹  and the high places, smashed the sacred pillars, and cut down the Asherah poles. ² 

They burned down the Lord’s temple and tore down the wall of Jerusalem. ¹  They burned all its fortified buildings and destroyed all its valuable items.

But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy, ¹  and they began to contradict ²  what Paul was saying ³  by reviling him. ⁴ 

For he is our peace, the one who made both groups into one ¹  and who destroyed the middle wall of partition, the hostility,

The king tore down the altars the kings of Judah had set up on the roof of Ahaz’s upper room, as well as the altars Manasseh had set up in the two courtyards of the Lord’s temple. He crushed them up ¹  and threw the dust in the Kidron Valley.

He ordered the altars of the Baals to be torn down, ¹  and broke the incense altars that were above them. He smashed the Asherah poles, idols and images, crushed them up and sprinkled the dust over the tombs of those who had sacrificed to them.

The men of the city said to Joash, “Bring out your son, so we can execute him! ¹  He pulled down the Baal altar and cut down the nearby Asherah pole.”

He even stripped off his clothes and prophesied before Samuel. He lay there ¹  naked all that day and night. (For that reason it is asked, “Is Saul also among the prophets?”)

But one of the servants told Nabal’s wife Abigail, “David sent messengers from the desert to greet ¹  our lord, but he screamed at them.

On the third day David and his men came to Ziklag. Now the Amalekites had raided the Negev and Ziklag. They attacked Ziklag and burned it. ¹ 

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

He did evil in the sight of ¹  the Lord, but not to the same degree as his father and mother. He did remove the sacred pillar of Baal that his father had made.

Eliakim son of Hilkiah, the palace supervisor, accompanied by Shebna the scribe and Joah son of Asaph, the secretary, went to Hezekiah with their clothes torn ¹  and reported to him what the chief adviser had said.

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.