2 Chronicles 14:3-5

14:3 He removed the pagan altars ¹  and the high places, smashed the sacred pillars, and cut down the Asherah poles. ²  14:4 He ordered Judah to seek the Lord God of their ancestors ³  and to observe his law and commands. ⁴  14:5 He removed the high places and the incense altars from all the cities of Judah. The kingdom had rest under his rule. ⁵ 

2 Chronicles 34:7

34:7 he tore down the altars and Asherah poles, demolished the idols, and smashed all the incense altars throughout the land of Israel. Then he returned to Jerusalem.

Exodus 32:20

32:20 He took the calf they had made and burned it in the fire, ground it ⁶  to powder, poured it out on the water, and made the Israelites drink it. ⁷ 

Leviticus 26:30

26:30 I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars, ⁸  and I will stack your dead bodies on top of the lifeless bodies of your idols. ⁹  I will abhor you. ¹⁰ 

Deuteronomy 7:5

7:5 Instead, this is what you must do to them: You must tear down their altars, shatter their sacred pillars, ¹¹  cut down their sacred Asherah poles, ¹²  and burn up their idols.

Deuteronomy 7:25-26

7:25 You must burn the images of their gods, but do not covet the silver and gold that covers them so much that you take it for yourself and thus become ensnared by it; for it is abhorrent ¹³  to the Lord your God. 7:26 You must not bring any abhorrent thing into your house and thereby become an object of divine wrath ¹⁴  along with it. ¹⁵  You must absolutely detest ¹⁶  and abhor it, ¹⁷  for it is an object of divine wrath.

Deuteronomy 9:21

9:21 As for your sinful thing ¹⁸  that you had made, the calf, I took it, melted it down, ¹⁹  ground it up until it was as fine as dust, and tossed the dust into the stream that flows down the mountain.

Deuteronomy 9:1

Theological Justification of the Conquest

9:1 Listen, Israel: Today you are about to cross the Jordan so you can dispossess the nations there, people greater and stronger than you who live in large cities with extremely high fortifications. ²⁰ 

Deuteronomy 15:14

15:14 You must supply them generously ²¹  from your flock, your threshing floor, and your winepress – as the Lord your God has blessed you, you must give to them.

Deuteronomy 15:2

15:2 This is the nature of the cancellation: Every creditor must remit what he has loaned to another person; ²²  he must not force payment from his fellow Israelite, ²³  for it is to be recognized as “the Lord’s cancellation of debts.”

Deuteronomy 23:6

23:6 You must not seek peace and prosperity for them through all the ages to come.

Deuteronomy 23:12

23:12 You are to have a place outside the camp to serve as a latrine. ²⁴ 

Deuteronomy 23:15

Purity in the Treatment of the Nonprivileged

23:15 You must not return an escaped slave to his master when he has run away to you. ²⁵ 

[14:3]  ¹ tn Heb “the altars of the foreigner.”

[14:3]  ² sn Asherah poles. A leading deity of the Canaanite pantheon was Asherah, wife/sister of El and goddess of fertility. She was commonly worshiped at shrines in or near groves of evergreen trees, or, failing that, at places marked by wooden poles (Hebrew אֲשֵׁרִים [’asherim], as here). They were to be burned or cut down (Deut 7:5; 12:3; 16:21; Judg 6:25, 28, 30; 2 Kgs 18:4).

[14:4]  ³ tn Heb “fathers.”

[14:4]  ⁴ tn Heb “the law and the command.”

[14:5]  ⁵ tn Heb “before him.”

[32:20]  ⁶ tn Here “it” has been supplied.

[32:20]  ⁷ tn Here “it” has been supplied.

[26:30]  ⁸ sn Regarding these cultic installations, see the remarks in B. A. Levine, Leviticus (JPSTC), 188, and R. E. Averbeck, NIDOTTE 2:903. The term rendered “incense altars” might better be rendered “sanctuaries [of foreign deities]” or “stelae.”

[26:30]  ⁹ tn The translation reflects the Hebrew wordplay “your corpses…the corpses of your idols.” Since idols, being lifeless, do not really have “corpses,” the translation uses “dead bodies” for people and “lifeless bodies” for the idols.

[26:30]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and my soul will abhor you.”

[7:5]  ¹¹ sn Sacred pillars. The Hebrew word (מַצֵּבֹת, matsevot) denotes a standing pillar, usually made of stone. Its purpose was to mark the presence of a shrine or altar thought to have been visited by deity. Though sometimes associated with pure worship of the Lord (Gen 28:18, 22; 31:13; 35:14; Exod 24:4), these pillars were usually associated with pagan cults and rituals (Exod 23:24; 34:13; Deut 12:3; 1 Kgs 14:23; 2 Kgs 17:10; Hos 3:4; 10:1; Jer 43:13).

[7:5]  ¹² sn Sacred Asherah poles. A leading deity of the Canaanite pantheon was Asherah, wife/sister of El and goddess of fertility. She was commonly worshiped at shrines in or near groves of evergreen trees, or, failing that, at places marked by wooden poles (Hebrew אֲשֵׁרִים [’asherim], as here). They were to be burned or cut down (Deut 12:3; 16:21; Judg 6:25, 28, 30; 2 Kgs 18:4).

[7:25]  ¹³ tn The Hebrew word תּוֹעֵבָה (to’evah, “abhorrent; detestable”) describes anything detestable to the Lord because of its innate evil or inconsistency with his own nature and character. Frequently such things (or even persons) must be condemned to annihilation (חֵרֶם, kherem) lest they become a means of polluting or contaminating others (cf. Deut 13:17; 20:17-18). See M. Grisanti, NIDOTTE 4:315.

[7:26]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “come under the ban” (so NASB); NRSV “be set apart for destruction.” The same phrase occurs again at the end of this verse.

[7:26]  ¹⁵ tn Or “like it is.”

[7:26]  ¹⁶ tn This Hebrew verb (שָׁקַץ, shaqats) is essentially synonymous with the next verb (תָעַב, ta’av; cf. תּוֹעֵבָה, to’evah; see note on the word “abhorrent” in v. 25), though its field of meaning is more limited to cultic abomination (cf. Lev 11:11, 13; Ps 22:25).

[7:26]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “detesting you must detest and abhorring you must abhor.” Both verbs are preceded by a cognate infinitive absolute indicating emphasis.

[9:21]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “your sin.” This is a metonymy in which the effect (sin) stands for the cause (the metal calf).

[9:21]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “burned it with fire.”

[9:1]  ²⁰ tn Heb “fortified to the heavens” (so NRSV); NLT “cities with walls that reach to the sky.” This is hyperbole.

[15:14]  ²¹ tn The Hebrew text uses the infinitive absolute for emphasis, which the translation indicates with “generously.”

[15:2]  ²² tn Heb “his neighbor,” used idiomatically to refer to another person.

[15:2]  ²³ tn Heb “his neighbor and his brother.” The words “his brother” may be a scribal gloss identifying “his neighbor” (on this idiom, see the preceding note) as a fellow Israelite (cf. v. 3). In this case the conjunction before “his brother” does not introduce a second category, but rather has the force of “that is.”

[23:12]  ²⁴ tn Heb “so that one may go outside there.” This expression is euphemistic.

[23:15]  ²⁵ tn The Hebrew text includes “from his master,” but this would be redundant in English style.