Save that the high places were not removed: the people sacrificed and burnt incense still on the high places.
Parallel translations
- WEB However the high places were not taken away. The people still sacrificed and burned incense in the high places.
- BSB Nevertheless, the high places were not taken away; the people continued sacrificing and burning incense there.
- NKJV except that the high places were not removed; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.
- NASB Only the high places were not eliminated; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.
- NLT But he did not destroy the pagan shrines, and the people still offered sacrifices and burned incense there.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Yet the high places remained, and the people continued sacrificing and burning incense there.
Overview
Once more the narrative notes the persistent failure to remove the unauthorized high places, the chronic weakness of Judah's reforms. The people's worship remained mixed and disordered, falling short of wholehearted devotion to God alone. This enduring compromise underscores humanity's inability to perfect its own worship apart from the redemption God provides.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- 2 Chr 34:3For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father: and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images.
- 2 Kgs 14:4Howbeit the high places were not taken away: as yet the people did sacrifice and burnt incense on the high places.
- 1 Kgs 22:43And he walked in all the ways of Asa his father; he turned not aside from it, doing that which was right in the eyes of the LORD: nevertheless the high places were not taken away; for the people offered and burnt incense yet in the high places.
- 1 Kgs 15:14But the high places were not removed: nevertheless Asa’s heart was perfect with the LORD all his days.
- 2 Kgs 18:4He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan.
- 2 Kgs 12:3But the high places were not taken away: the people still sacrificed and burnt incense in the high places.
- 2 Chr 32:12Hath not the same Hezekiah taken away his high places and his altars, and commanded Judah and Jerusalem, saying, Ye shall worship before one altar, and burn incense upon it?
- 2 Chr 17:6And his heart was lifted up in the ways of the LORD: moreover he took away the high places and groves out of Judah.
- 2 Kgs 15:35Howbeit the high places were not removed: the people sacrificed and burned incense still in the high places. He built the higher gate of the house of the LORD.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
Amid the long decline toward exile, the promise to David's house refuses to die; the flickering lamp kept burning anticipates the coming King who will not fail or be cut off.
How 2 Kings 15:4 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.