Let our leaders take steps ¹  on behalf of all the assembly. Let all those in our towns who have married foreign women come at an appointed time, and with them the elders of each town and its judges, until the hot anger of our God is turned away from us in this matter.”

In all your dwellings, the cities will be laid waste and the high places ruined so that your altars will be laid waste and ruined, your idols will be shattered and demolished, your incense altars will be broken down, and your works wiped out. ¹ 

So they got up early on the next day and offered up burnt offerings and brought peace offerings, and the people sat down to eat and drink, ¹  and they rose up to play. ² 

I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars, ¹  and I will stack your dead bodies on top of the lifeless bodies of your idols. ²  I will abhor you. ³ 

you must drive out all the inhabitants of the land before you. Destroy all their carved images, all their molten images, ¹  and demolish their high places.

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.

He was very thirsty, so he cried out to the Lord and said, “You have given your servant ¹  this great victory. But now must I die of thirst and fall into hands of the Philistines?” ² 

David asked the men who were standing near him, “What will be done for the man who strikes down this Philistine and frees Israel from this humiliation? ¹  For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he defies the armies of the living God?”

Your servant has struck down both the lion and the bear. This uncircumcised Philistine will be just like one of them. ¹  For he has defied the armies of the living God!”

They cut off Saul’s ¹  head and stripped him of his armor. They sent messengers to announce the news in the temple of their idols and among their people throughout the surrounding land of the Philistines.

for the prophecy he announced with the Lord’s authority ¹  against the altar in Bethel ²  and against all the temples on the high places in the cities of the north ³  will certainly be fulfilled.”

After this happened, Jeroboam still did not change his evil ways; ¹  he continued to appoint common people ²  as priests at the high places. Anyone who wanted the job he consecrated as a priest. ³ 

There were also male cultic prostitutes ¹  in the land. They committed the same horrible sins as the nations ²  that the Lord had driven out from before the Israelites.

When Jehoram saw Jehu, he asked, “Is everything all right, Jehu?” He replied, “How can everything be all right as long as your mother Jezebel promotes idolatry and pagan practices?” ¹ 

But the high places were not eliminated; the people continued to offer sacrifices and burn incense on the high places. He built the Upper Gate to the Lord’s temple.

He followed in the footsteps of ¹  the kings of Israel. He passed his son through the fire, ²  a horrible sin practiced by the nations ³  whom the Lord drove out from before the Israelites.

The Israelites said things about the Lord their God that were not right. ¹  They built high places in all their cities, from the watchtower to the fortress. ² 

But each of these nations made ¹  its own gods and put them in the shrines on the high places that the people of Samaria ²  had made. Each nation did this in the cities where they lived.

At the same time they worshiped ¹  the Lord. They appointed some of their own people to serve as priests in the shrines on the high places. ² 

This will happen because they have abandoned me and offered sacrifices ¹  to other gods, angering me with all the idols they have made. ²  My anger will ignite against this place and will not be extinguished!’”