Deuteronomy 7:5 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.

◄ Deuteronomy 7:5 ►

Parallel Verses

New International Version
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.

English Standard Version
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
"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
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
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
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,

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.

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;

Cross References

Exodus 23:24
You shall not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their works: but you shall utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their images.

Exodus 34:13
But you shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves:

Numbers 33:52
Then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their pictures, and destroy all their molten images, and quite pluck down all their high places:

Deuteronomy 12:3
And you shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves with fire; and you shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place.

Deuteronomy 16:21
You shall not plant you a grove of any trees near to the altar of the LORD your God, which you shall make you.

2 Kings 23:14
And he broke in pieces the images, and cut down the groves, and filled their places with the bones of men.

2 Chronicles 14:3
For he took away the altars of the strange gods, and the high places, and broke down the images, and cut down the groves:

Isaiah 17:8
And he shall not look to the altars, the work of his hands, neither shall respect that which his fingers have made, either the groves, or the images.

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Altars Asherah Asherim Ashe'rim Break Broken Burn Burned Cut Dash Deal Destroy Engraved Hew Holy Idols Images Pieces Pillars Poles Pulled Sacred Shatter Smash Standing Statues Stones Tear Trees

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Commentaries

Matthew Henry's 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.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown

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."