Definition and Context:
Idolatry, in biblical terms, refers to the worship of idols or the elevation of any created thing above the Creator. It is considered a grave sin as it directly violates the first and second commandments given by God, which emphasize the exclusive worship of the Lord and the prohibition of graven images (Exodus 20:3-5).

Warnings Against Idolatry:

1. Old Testament Warnings:
· Exodus 20:3-5: "You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in the heavens above, on the earth below, or in the waters beneath. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God..."
· Deuteronomy 4:15-19: Moses warns the Israelites to be careful not to corrupt themselves by making idols in any form, emphasizing that God revealed Himself without form to prevent such practices.
· Isaiah 44:9-20: The prophet Isaiah mocks the futility of idol-making, highlighting the absurdity of worshiping objects made by human hands.

2. New Testament Warnings:
· 1 Corinthians 10:14: "Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry."
· 1 John 5:21: "Little children, keep yourselves from idols."
· Romans 1:22-23: Paul describes how humanity exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and creatures, leading to spiritual and moral decay.

Punishments of Idolatry:

1. Old Testament Punishments:
· Deuteronomy 13:6-10: The law prescribes severe punishment for those who entice others to idolatry, including the death penalty, to purge the evil from among the people.
· Exodus 32:27-28: After the incident of the golden calf, the Levites are commanded to execute those who participated in idol worship, resulting in the death of about three thousand men.
· 2 Kings 17:16-18: The Northern Kingdom of Israel is exiled by the Assyrians as a direct consequence of persistent idolatry and rejection of God's commandments.

2. New Testament Consequences:
· Romans 1:24-25: God "gave them over" to their sinful desires as a result of their idolatry, leading to a degradation of their bodies and minds.
· Revelation 21:8: Idolaters are listed among those who will face the second death in the lake of fire, indicating eternal separation from God.

Theological Implications:
Idolatry is not merely the worship of physical idols but extends to any form of allegiance or devotion that supersedes one's commitment to God. It is a recurring theme throughout Scripture, serving as a warning against the human tendency to replace God with tangible or conceptual substitutes. The biblical narrative consistently portrays idolatry as a betrayal of the covenant relationship between God and His people, resulting in divine judgment and the call to repentance.Deuteronomy 17:2-5
If there be found among you, within any of your gates which the LORD your God gives you, man or woman, that has worked wickedness in the sight of the LORD your God, in transgressing his covenant,
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2 Chronicles 28:23
For he sacrificed to the gods of Damascus, which smote him: and he said, Because the gods of the kings of Syria help them, therefore will I sacrifice to them, that they may help me. But they were the ruin of him, and of all Israel.
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Nehemiah 9:27-37
Therefore you delivered them into the hand of their enemies, who vexed them: and in the time of their trouble, when they cried to you, you heard them from heaven; and according to your manifold mercies you gave them saviors, who saved them out of the hand of their enemies.
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Psalm 78:58-64
For they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their graven images.
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Psalm 106:34-42
They did not destroy the nations, concerning whom the LORD commanded them:
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Isaiah 1:29-31
For they shall be ashamed of the oaks which you have desired, and you shall be confounded for the gardens that you have chosen.
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Isaiah 2:6-22
Therefore you have forsaken your people the house of Jacob, because they be replenished from the east, and are soothsayers like the Philistines, and they please themselves in the children of strangers.
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Isaiah 30:22
You shall defile also the covering of your graven images of silver, and the ornament of your molten images of gold: you shall cast them away as a menstruous cloth; you shall say to it, Get you hence.
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Isaiah 57:3-13
But draw near here, you sons of the sorceress, the seed of the adulterer and the whore.
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Isaiah 65:3,4
A people that provokes me to anger continually to my face; that sacrifices in gardens, and burns incense on altars of brick;
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Jeremiah 1:15,16
For, see, I will call all the families of the kingdoms of the north, said the LORD; and they shall come, and they shall set every one his throne at the entering of the gates of Jerusalem, and against all the walls thereof round about, and against all the cities of Judah.
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Jeremiah 3:1-11
They say, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man's, shall he return to her again? shall not that land be greatly polluted? but you have played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me, said the LORD.
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Jeremiah 5:1-17
Run you to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, if you can find a man, if there be any that executes judgment, that seeks the truth; and I will pardon it.
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Jeremiah 7:1
The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,
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Jeremiah 8:1,2,19
At that time, said the LORD, they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his princes, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves:
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Jeremiah 13:9-27
Thus said the LORD, After this manner will I mar the pride of Judah, and the great pride of Jerusalem.
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Jeremiah 16:1
The word of the LORD came also to me, saying,
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Jeremiah 17:1-6
The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond: it is graven on the table of their heart, and on the horns of your altars;
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Jeremiah 18:13-15
Therefore thus said the LORD; Ask you now among the heathen, who has heard such things: the virgin of Israel has done a very horrible thing.
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Jeremiah 19:1
Thus said the LORD, Go and get a potter's earthen bottle, and take of the ancients of the people, and of the ancients of the priests;
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Jeremiah 22:9
Then they shall answer, Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD their God, and worshipped other gods, and served them.
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Jeremiah 32:35
And they built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire to Molech; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.
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Jeremiah 44:1
The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the Jews which dwell in the land of Egypt, which dwell at Migdol, and at Tahpanhes, and at Noph, and in the country of Pathros, saying,
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Jeremiah 48:8
And the spoiler shall come on every city, and no city shall escape: the valley also shall perish, and the plain shall be destroyed, as the LORD has spoken.
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Ezekiel 6:1
And the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
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Ezekiel 7:19
They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumbling block of their iniquity.
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Ezekiel 8:5-18
Then said he to me, Son of man, lift up your eyes now the way toward the north. So I lifted up my eyes the way toward the north, and behold northward at the gate of the altar this image of jealousy in the entry.
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Ezekiel 9:1
He cried also in my ears with a loud voice, saying, Cause them that have charge over the city to draw near, even every man with his destroying weapon in his hand.
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Ezekiel 14:1-14
Then came certain of the elders of Israel to me, and sat before me.
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Ezekiel 16:1
Again the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
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Ezekiel 20:1
And it came to pass in the seventh year, in the fifth month, the tenth day of the month, that certain of the elders of Israel came to inquire of the LORD, and sat before me.
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Ezekiel 22:4
You are become guilty in your blood that you have shed; and have defiled yourself in your idols which you have made; and you have caused your days to draw near, and are come even to your years: therefore have I made you a reproach to the heathen, and a mocking to all countries.
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Ezekiel 23:1
The word of the LORD came again to me, saying,
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Ezekiel 44:10-12
And the Levites that are gone away far from me, when Israel went astray, which went astray away from me after their idols; they shall even bear their iniquity.
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Hosea 1:2
The beginning of the word of the LORD by Hosea. And the LORD said to Hosea, Go, take to you a wife of prostitutions and children of prostitutions: for the land has committed great prostitution, departing from the LORD.
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Hosea 2:2-5
Plead with your mother, plead: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore put away her prostitutions out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts;
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Hosea 4:12-19
My people ask counsel at their stocks, and their staff declares to them: for the spirit of prostitutions has caused them to err, and they have gone a whoring from under their God.
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Hosea 5:1-3
Hear you this, O priests; and listen, you house of Israel; and give you ear, O house of the king; for judgment is toward you, because you have been a snare on Mizpah, and a net spread on Tabor.
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Hosea 8:5-14
Your calf, O Samaria, has cast you off; my anger is kindled against them: how long will it be ere they attain to innocence?
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Hosea 9:10
I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness; I saw your fathers as the first ripe in the fig tree at her first time: but they went to Baalpeor, and separated themselves to that shame; and their abominations were according as they loved.
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Hosea 10:1
Israel is an empty vine, he brings forth fruit to himself: according to the multitude of his fruit he has increased the altars; according to the goodness of his land they have made goodly images.
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Hosea 11:2
As they called them, so they went from them: they sacrificed to Baalim, and burned incense to graven images.
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Hosea 12:11-14
Is there iniquity in Gilead? surely they are vanity: they sacrifice bullocks in Gilgal; yes, their altars are as heaps in the furrows of the fields.
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Hosea 13:1-4
When Ephraim spoke trembling, he exalted himself in Israel; but when he offended in Baal, he died.
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Hosea 14:8
Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols? I have heard him, and observed him: I am like a green fir tree. From me is your fruit found.
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Amos 3:14
That in the day that I shall visit the transgressions of Israel on him I will also visit the altars of Bethel: and the horns of the altar shall be cut off, and fall to the ground.
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Amos 4:4,5
Come to Bethel, and transgress; at Gilgal multiply transgression; and bring your sacrifices every morning, and your tithes after three years:
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Amos 5:5
But seek not Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beersheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nothing.
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Micah 1:1-9
The word of the LORD that came to Micah the Morasthite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem.
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Micah 5:12-14
And I will cut off witchcrafts out of your hand; and you shall have no more soothsayers:
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Micah 6:16
For the statutes of Omri are kept, and all the works of the house of Ahab, and you walk in their counsels; that I should make you a desolation, and the inhabitants thereof an hissing: therefore you shall bear the reproach of my people.
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Zephaniah 1:1
The word of the LORD which came to Zephaniah the son of Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hizkiah, in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah.
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Malachi 2:11-13
Judah has dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah has profaned the holiness of the LORD which he loved, and has married the daughter of a strange god.
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The End
... hundred years had passed since Solomon began idolatry, and steadily ... promise of His
coming?' and mocked His warnings and would ... 'Because sentence against an evil ...
//christianbookshelf.org/maclaren/expositions of holy scripture g/the end.htm

On the Public Shows.
... of the C??stus, and of our wrestle against the spiritual ... his eyes to the exhibition
of idolatry by lust ... orb, designating in its waxings and warnings the courses ...
/.../on the public shows.htm

The Death of Moses
... gloomy, full of dark fears and warnings about what ... his patriotism, he has sinned
against God, and ... in his own eyes, falling continually into idolatry, civil war ...
/.../kingsley/the gospel of the pentateuch/sermon xviii the death of.htm

Absolution.
... of relations as if it were an idolatry as great ... It cannot be fed on protests against
heresy, however vehement. ... Every book, every journal, rings with warnings. ...
/...//christianbookshelf.org/robertson/sermons preached at brighton/v absolution.htm

The Psalms of David
... The warnings of God to his people; or, Spiritual blessings and punishments. ... A complaint
against persecutors. ... The true God our refuge; or, Idolatry reproved. ...
//christianbookshelf.org/watts/the psalms of david/

An Index to Find a Psalm Suited to Particular Subjects or ...
... Images: see Idolatry. Imprecations and charity, [607]35. ... against the enemies of the
church, [1185]76, [1186]149. ... Warnings of God to his people, [1210]81. ...
/.../watts/the psalms and hymns of isaac watts/an index to find a.htm

Second visit to Nazareth - the Mission of the Twelve.
... it is equally evident, that the predictions, warnings, and promises ... of their feet
for a testimony against such a ... the other hand, to dust to idolatry' meant to ...
/.../the life and times of jesus the messiah/chapter xxvii second visit to.htm

Index of Subjects.
... Idolatry, grossness of, [842]5. ... and why punished, [920]457; madness of, against Christ,
[921 ... repealed, [1044]436, [1045]441; how measured punishments, [1046]455 ...
/.../chrysostom/homilies on the gospel of saint matthew/index of subjects.htm

Latitudinarian Churchmanship.
... be paid 'without danger of idolatry, and without ... The public mind had utterly revolted
against the system ... impression than the unqualified warnings contained in ...
/.../chapter iv latitudinarian churchmanship.htm

The Education of the World.
... Side by side with this freedom from idolatry there had grown ... It is nothing against
the drift of this argument, that ... and he has to profit by such warnings as he ...
/.../essays and reviews the education of the world/the education of the world.htm

What is ministry idolatry? | GotQuestions.org

What is the definition of idolatry? | GotQuestions.org

What are some modern forms of idolatry? | GotQuestions.org

Idolatry: Dictionary and Thesaurus | Clyx.com

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