Deuteronomy 7:5
◄  Deuteronomy 7:5  ►
New International Version (©2011)
This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire.

New Living Translation (©2007)
This is what you must do. You must break down their pagan altars and shatter their sacred pillars. Cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols.

English Standard Version (©2001)
But thus shall you deal with them: you shall break down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and chop down their Asherim and burn their carved images with fire.

New American Standard Bible (©1995)
"But thus you shall do to them: you shall tear down their altars, and smash their sacred pillars, and hew down their Asherim, and burn their graven images with fire.

King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)
But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire.

Holman Christian Standard Bible (©2009)
Instead, this is what you are to do to them: tear down their altars, smash their sacred pillars, cut down their Asherah poles, and burn up their carved images.

International Standard Version (©2012)
This is what you are to do to them: tear down their altars, break their pillars, cut down their ritual pillars, and burn their carved idols in fire,

NET Bible (©2006)
Instead, this is what you must do to them: You must tear down their altars, shatter their sacred pillars, cut down their sacred Asherah poles, and burn up their idols.

GOD'S WORD® Translation (©1995)
But this is what you must do to these people: Tear down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their poles dedicated to the goddess Asherah, and burn their idols.

King James 2000 Bible (©2003)
But thus shall you deal with them; you shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their idol poles, and burn their graven images with fire.

American King James Version
But thus shall you deal with them; you shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire.

American Standard Version
But thus shall ye deal with them: ye shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and hew down their Asherim, and burn their graven images with fire.

Douay-Rheims Bible
But thus rather shall you deal with them: Destroy their altars, and break their statues, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven things.

Darby Bible Translation
But thus shall ye deal with them: ye shall break down their altars, and shatter their statues, and hew down their Asherahs, and burn their graven images with fire.

English Revised Version
But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and hew down their Asherim, and burn their graven images with fire.

Webster's Bible Translation
But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire.

World English Bible
But you shall deal with them like this: you shall break down their altars, and dash their pillars in pieces, and cut down their Asherim, and burn their engraved images with fire.

Young's Literal Translation
'But thus thou dost to them: their altars ye break down, and their standing pillars ye shiver, and their shrines ye cut down, and their graven images ye burn with fire;

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

7:1-11 Here is a strict caution against all friendship and fellowship with idols and idolaters. Those who are in communion with God, must have no communication with the unfruitful works of darkness. Limiting the orders to destroy, to the nations here mentioned, plainly shows that after ages were not to draw this into a precedent. A proper understanding of the evil of sin, and of the mystery of a crucified Saviour, will enable us to perceive the justice of God in all his punishments, temporal and eternal. We must deal decidedly with our lusts that war against our souls; let us not show them any mercy, but mortify, and crucify, and utterly destroy them. Thousands in the world that now is, have been undone by ungodly marriages; for there is more likelihood that the good will be perverted, than that the bad will be converted. Those who, in choosing yoke-fellows, keep not within the bounds of a profession of religion, cannot promise themselves helps meet for them.

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 5-8. - They were not only to have no fellowship with the idolaters, but they were to root out their idolatry, everting their altars and destroying their idols; and this because they were a holy people, graciously chosen of God to be his special possession - a high privilege and honor which they were to be careful not to cast away. Verse 5. - Cut down their groves; rather, cut or hew in pieces their asherahs. These were, apparently, wooden pillars of considerable height, which were firmly planted in the ground (comp. Judges 6:25-27; Deuteronomy 16:21)? and were consecrated to the worship of a female deity, the companion of Baal; probably the same as that after-war, is known as Astarte, the Venus of the Syrians (see note on Deuteronomy 16:21).

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

But thus shall ye deal with them,.... The inhabitants of the land of Canaan:

ye shall destroy their altars; on which they sacrificed to their idols:

and break down their images; of their gods, and the statues and pillars erected to the honour of them:

and cut down their groves; sacred to idols, which were usually planted on hills, and about Heathen temples, and under which idols were placed to be worshipped. The Targum of Jonathan calls them trees of their adoration, under which they worshipped; though there was a worship paid to them, not indeed directly to them, or for their sakes, but for the sake of the idols they were sacred to, or were placed under them; so Maimonides (e) says, a tree which at first was planted to be worshipped is forbidden of any use (or profit); and this is the or "grove", spoken of in the law, a tree planted and lopped, of which a graven image is made for an idol; and so the tree that has been worshipped, though the body of it is, not forbidden, all the shoots and leaves, and the branches, and the fruits it produces all the time it is worshipped, are forbidden to be used: though the word here used sometimes seems to signify, not a grove of trees, but some image itself, since we read of it in the temple, 2 Kings 21:7,

and burn their graven images with fire; distinguished from their molten images, which may be meant in a preceding clause, and which are particularly mentioned as to be destroyed as well as these, Numbers 33:52.

(e) Hilchot Obede Cochabim, c. 8. sect. 3, 4. Vid. Misn. Avodah Zarah, c. 3. sect. 7.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

5. thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, &c.—The removal of the temples, altars, and everything that had been enlisted in the service, or might tend to perpetuate the remembrance, of Canaanite idolatry, was likewise highly expedient for preserving the Israelites from all risk of contamination. It was imitated by the Scottish Reformers, and although many ardent lovers of architecture and the fine arts have anathematized their proceedings as vandalism, yet there was profound wisdom in the favorite maxim of Knox—"pull down the nests, and the rooks will disappear."

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Casting out the Nations
…4For they will turn away your son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the LORD be kindled against you, and destroy you suddenly. 5But thus shall you deal with them; you shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire. 6For you are an holy people to the LORD your God: the LORD your God has chosen you to be a special people to himself, above all people that are on the face of the earth. …

Exodus 23:24 Do not bow down before their gods or worship them or follow their practices. You must demolish them and break their sacred stones to pieces.
Exodus 34:13 Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and cut down their Asherah poles.
Numbers 33:52 drive out all the inhabitants of the land before you. Destroy all their carved images and their cast idols, and demolish all their high places.
Deuteronomy 12:3 Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and burn their Asherah poles in the fire; cut down the idols of their gods and wipe out their names from those places.
Deuteronomy 16:21 Do not set up any wooden Asherah pole beside the altar you build to the LORD your God,
2 Kings 23:14 Josiah smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles and covered the sites with human bones.
2 Chronicles 14:3 He removed the foreign altars and the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles.
Isaiah 17:8 They will not look to the altars, the work of their hands, and they will have no regard for the Asherah poles and the incense altars their fingers have made.