I say this so you will not corrupt yourselves by making an image in the form of any kind of figure. This includes the likeness of a human male or female,

David replied to him, “How is it that you were not afraid to reach out your hand to destroy the Lord’s anointed?”

Joab answered, “Get serious! I don’t want to swallow up or destroy anything!

He threatened to destroy them, but Moses, his chosen one, interceded with him and turned back his destructive anger.

The one who robs his father and mother and says, “There is no transgression,” is a companion to the one who destroys.

“It did no good for me to punish your people. They did not respond to such correction. You slaughtered your prophets like a voracious lion.”

The Lord commanded the enemy, “March through the vineyards of Israel and Judah and ruin them. But do not destroy them completely. Strip off their branches for these people do not belong to the Lord.

I reported, “All of them are the most stubborn of rebels! They are as hard as bronze or iron. They go about telling lies. They all deal corruptly.

“I, the Lord, say: ‘This shows how I will ruin the highly exalted position in which Judah and Jerusalem take pride.

I will send men against it to destroy it with their axes and hatchets. They will hack up its fine cedar panels and columns and throw them into the fire.

If grape pickers came to pick your grapes, would they not leave a few grapes behind? If robbers came at night, would they not pillage only what they needed?

“Babylon, you are my war club, my weapon for battle. I used you to smash nations. I used you to destroy kingdoms.

Have you not copied their behavior and practiced their abominable deeds? In a short time you became even more depraved in all your conduct than they were!

Yet I had pity on them and did not destroy them, so I did not make an end of them in the wilderness.

“Her sister Oholibah watched this, but she became more corrupt in her lust than her sister had been, and her acts of prostitution were more numerous than those of her sister.

They will destroy the walls of Tyre and break down her towers. I will scrape her soil from her and make her a bare rock.

For I know that after I die you will totally corrupt yourselves and turn away from the path I have commanded you to walk. Disaster will confront you in the days to come because you will act wickedly before the Lord, inciting him to anger because of your actions.”

When the angel extended his hand to destroy Jerusalem, the Lord relented from his judgment. He told the angel who was killing the people, “That’s enough! Stop now!” (Now the Lord’s angel was near the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.)

This is what the Lord says: “When juice is discovered in a cluster of grapes, someone says, ‘Don’t destroy it, for it contains juice.’ So I will do for the sake of my servants – I will not destroy everyone.

So God said to Noah, “I have decided that all living creatures must die, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. Now I am about to destroy them and the earth.