Molten Image

And the LORD said to him, “Bring Me a heifer, a goat, and a ram, each three years old, along with a turtledove and a young pigeon.”

He took the gold from their hands, and with an engraving tool he fashioned it into a molten calf. And they said, “These, O Israel, are your gods, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”

How quickly they have turned aside from the way that I commanded them! They have made for themselves a molten calf and have bowed down to it. They have sacrificed to it and said, ‘These, O Israel, are your gods, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.’”

As Moses approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, he burned with anger and threw the tablets out of his hands, shattering them at the base of the mountain.

Then he took the calf they had made, burned it in the fire, ground it to powder, and scattered the powder over the face of the water. Then he forced the Israelites to drink it.

So I said to them, ‘Whoever has gold, let him take it off,’ and they gave it to me. And when I threw it into the fire, out came this calf!”

And the LORD sent a plague on the people because of what they had done with the calf that Aaron had made.

You shall make no molten gods for yourselves.

He said to Aaron, “Take for yourself a young bull for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering, both without blemish, and present them before the LORD.

Then speak to the Israelites and say, ‘Take a male goat for a sin offering, a calf and a lamb—both a year old and without blemish—for a burnt offering,

So Aaron approached the altar and slaughtered the calf as a sin offering for himself.

Do not turn to idols or make for yourselves molten gods. I am the LORD your God.

you must drive out before you all the inhabitants of the land, destroy all their carved images and cast idols, and demolish all their high places.

And the LORD said to me, “Get up and go down from here at once, for your people, whom you brought out of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. How quickly they have turned aside from the way that I commanded them! They have made for themselves a molten image.”

And I saw how you had sinned against the LORD your God; you had made for yourselves a molten calf. You had turned aside quickly from the way that the LORD had commanded you.

And I took that sinful thing, the calf you had made, and burned it in the fire. Then I crushed it and ground it to powder as fine as dust, and I cast it into the stream that came down from the mountain.

Then the elders of the city nearest the victim shall take a heifer that has never been yoked or used for work,

bring the heifer to a valley with running water that has not been plowed or sown, and break its neck there by the stream.

Then all the elders of the city nearest the victim shall wash their hands by the stream over the heifer whose neck has been broken,

‘Cursed is the man who makes a carved idol or molten image—an abomination to the LORD, the work of the hands of a craftsman—and sets it up in secret.’ And let all the people say, ‘Amen!’

Before sunset on the seventh day, the men of the city said to Samson: “What is sweeter than honey? And what is stronger than a lion?” So he said to them: “If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have solved my riddle!”

And when he had returned the eleven hundred shekels of silver to his mother, she said, “I wholly dedicate the silver to the LORD for my son’s benefit, to make a graven image and a molten idol. Therefore I will now return it to you.”

So he returned the silver to his mother, and she took two hundred shekels of silver and gave them to a silversmith, who made them into a graven image and a molten idol. And they were placed in the house of Micah.

Then the five men who had gone to spy out the land of Laish said to their brothers, “Did you know that one of these houses has an ephod, household gods, a graven image, and a molten idol? Now think about what you should do.”

And the five men who had gone to spy out the land went inside and took the graven image, the ephod, the household idols, and the molten idol, while the priest stood at the entrance of the gate with the six hundred armed men.

When they entered Micah’s house and took the graven image, the ephod, the household idols, and the molten idol, the priest said to them, “What are you doing?”

“How can I go?” Samuel asked. “Saul will hear of it and kill me!” The LORD answered, “Take a heifer with you and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the LORD.’

The woman had a fattened calf at her house, and she quickly slaughtered it. She also took flour, kneaded it, and baked unleavened bread.

After seeking advice, the king made two golden calves and said to the people, “Going up to Jerusalem is too much for you. Here, O Israel, are your gods, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.”

And Jeroboam ordained a feast on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, like the feast that was in Judah, and he offered sacrifices on the altar; he made this offering in Bethel to sacrifice to the calves he had set up, and he installed priests in Bethel for the high places he had set up.

You have done more evil than all who came before you. You have proceeded to make for yourself other gods and molten images to provoke Me, and you have flung Me behind your back.

but he did not turn away from the sins that Jeroboam son of Nebat had caused Israel to commit—the worship of the golden calves at Bethel and Dan.

They abandoned all the commandments of the LORD their God and made for themselves two cast idols of calves and an Asherah pole. They bowed down to all the host of heaven and served Baal.

And Jeroboam appointed his own priests for the high places and for the goat demons and calf idols he had made.

And now you think you can resist the kingdom of the LORD, which is in the hands of David’s descendants. You are indeed a vast army, and you have with you the golden calves that Jeroboam made for you as gods.

Instead, he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel and even made cast images of the Baals.

In the eighth year of his reign, while he was still young, Josiah began to seek the God of his father David, and in the twelfth year he began to cleanse Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the Asherah poles, the carved idols, and the cast images.

Then in his presence the altars of the Baals were torn down, and he cut to pieces the incense altars that were above them. He shattered the Asherah poles, the carved idols, and the cast images, crushed them to dust, and scattered them over the graves of those who had sacrificed to them.

Even when they cast for themselves an image of a calf and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ and when they committed terrible blasphemies,

He makes Lebanon skip like a calf, and Sirion like a young wild ox.

Envoys will arrive from Egypt; Cush will stretch out her hands to God.

At Horeb they made a calf and worshiped a molten image.

On that day a man will raise a young cow and two sheep,

The wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the goat; the calf and young lion and fatling will be together, and a little child will lead them.

For the fortified city lies deserted—a homestead abandoned, a wilderness forsaken. There the calves graze, and there they lie down; they strip its branches bare.

So you will desecrate your silver-plated idols and your gold-plated images. You will throw them away like menstrual cloths, saying to them, “Be gone!”

See, they are all a delusion; their works amount to nothing; their images are as empty as the wind.

But those who trust in idols and say to molten images, ‘You are our gods!’ will be turned back in utter shame.

Therefore I declared it to you long ago; I announced it before it came to pass, so that you could not claim, ‘My idol has done this; my carved image and molten god has ordained it.’

Every man is senseless and devoid of knowledge; every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols. For his molten images are a fraud, and there is no breath in them.

I have surely heard Ephraim’s moaning: ‘You disciplined me severely, like an untrained calf. Restore me, that I may return, for You are the LORD my God.

And those who have transgressed My covenant and have not fulfilled the terms of the covenant they made before Me, I will treat like the calf they cut in two in order to pass between its pieces.

The officials of Judah and Jerusalem, the court officials, the priests, and all the people of the land who passed between the pieces of the calf,

Egypt is a beautiful heifer, but a gadfly from the north is coming against her.

Even the mercenaries among her are like fattened calves. They too will turn back; together they will flee, they will not stand their ground, for the day of calamity is coming upon them—the time of their punishment.

“Because you rejoice, because you sing in triumph—you who plunder My inheritance—because you frolic like a heifer treading grain and neigh like stallions,

Every man is senseless and devoid of knowledge; every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols. For his molten images are a fraud, and there is no breath in them.

Their legs were straight, and the soles of their feet were like the hooves of a calf, gleaming like polished bronze.

He will take even their gods captive to Egypt, with their metal images and their precious vessels of silver and gold. For some years he will stay away from the king of the North,

He has rejected your calf, O Samaria. My anger burns against them. How long will they be incapable of innocence?

For this thing is from Israel—a craftsman made it, and it is not God. It will be broken to pieces, that calf of Samaria.

The people of Samaria will fear for the calf of Beth-aven. Indeed, its people will mourn over it with its idolatrous priests—those who rejoiced in its glory—for it has been taken from them into exile.

Ephraim is a well-trained heifer that loves to thresh; but I will place a yoke on her fair neck. I will harness Ephraim, Judah will plow, and Jacob will break the hard ground.

Now they sin more and more and make for themselves cast images, idols skillfully made from their silver, all of them the work of craftsmen. People say of them, “They offer human sacrifice and kiss the calves!”

You lie on beds inlaid with ivory, and lounge upon your couches. You dine on lambs from the flock and calves from the stall.

With what shall I come before the LORD when I bow before the God on high? Should I come to Him with burnt offerings, with year-old calves?

The LORD has issued a command concerning you, O Nineveh: “There will be no descendants to carry on your name. I will cut off the carved image and cast idol from the house of your gods; I will prepare your grave, for you are contemptible.”

What use is an idol, that a craftsman should carve it—or an image, a teacher of lies? For its maker trusts in his own creation; he makes idols that cannot speak.