Exodus 20:5

God forbids bowing to idols, declaring Himself jealous and visiting iniquity on generations that hate Him. Idolatry provokes God and brings lasting consequences.

Cross-references · 40

• Deut 5:9You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on their children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,
• Num 14:18‘The LORD is slow to anger and abounding in loving devotion, forgiving iniquity and transgression. Yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished; He will visit the iniquity of the fathers upon their children to the third and fourth generation.’
• Deut 4:24For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
• Exod 34:14For you must not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.
• Josh 24:19But Joshua said to the people, “You are not able to serve the LORD, for He is a holy God; He is a jealous God; He will not forgive your rebellion or your sins.
• Exod 34:6–7Then the LORD passed in front of Moses and called out: “The LORD, the LORD God, is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion and faithfulness,
• Deut 6:15For the LORD your God, who is among you, is a jealous God. Otherwise the anger of the LORD your God will be kindled against you, and He will wipe you off the face of the earth.
• Isa 65:6–7Behold, it is written before Me: I will not keep silent, but I will repay; I will pay it back into their laps,
• Ps 109:14May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the LORD, and the sin of his mother never be blotted out.
• Josh 23:7So you are not to associate with these nations that remain among you. You must not call on the names of their gods or swear by them, and you must not serve them or bow down to them.
• Jer 32:18You show loving devotion to thousands but lay the iniquity of the fathers into the laps of their children after them, O great and mighty God whose name is the LORD of Hosts,
• Nah 1:2The LORD is a jealous and avenging God; the LORD is avenging and full of wrath. The LORD takes vengeance on His foes and reserves wrath for His enemies.
• Exod 23:24You must not bow down to their gods or serve them or follow their practices. Instead, you are to demolish them and smash their sacred stones to pieces.
• Ps 79:8Do not hold past sins against us; let Your compassion come quickly, for we are brought low.
• Num 14:33Your children will be shepherds in the wilderness for forty years, and they will suffer for your unfaithfulness until the last of your bodies lies in the wilderness.
• Jer 2:9Therefore, I will contend with you again, declares the LORD, and I will bring a case against your children’s children.
• Matt 23:34–36Because of this, I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify, and others you will flog in your synagogues and persecute in town after town.
• Isa 14:20–21You will not join them in burial, since you have destroyed your land and slaughtered your own people. The offspring of the wicked will never again be mentioned.
• Job 5:4His sons are far from safety, crushed in court without a defender.
• Lev 26:39–40Those of you who survive in the lands of your enemies will waste away in their iniquity and will decay in the sins of their fathers.
• Jas 4:4You adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore, whoever chooses to be a friend of the world renders himself an enemy of God.
• Rom 8:7because the mind of the flesh is hostile to God: It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.
• Lev 26:1“You must not make idols for yourselves or set up a carved image or sacred pillar; you must not place a sculpted stone in your land to bow down to it. For I am the LORD your God.
• Ps 81:15Those who hate the LORD would feign obedience, and their doom would last forever.
• 2 Kgs 23:26Nevertheless, the LORD did not turn away from the fury of His burning anger, which was kindled against Judah because of all that Manasseh had done to provoke Him to anger.
• Judg 2:19But when the judge died, the Israelites became even more corrupt than their fathers, going after other gods to serve them and bow down to them. They would not give up their evil practices and stubborn ways.
• Isa 44:19And no one considers in his heart, no one has the knowledge or insight to say, “I burned half of it in the fire, and I baked bread on its coals; I roasted meat and I ate. Shall I make something detestable with the rest of it? Shall I bow down to a block of wood?”
• Josh 23:16If you transgress the covenant of the LORD your God, which He commanded you, and go and serve other gods and bow down to them, then the anger of the LORD will burn against you, and you will quickly perish from this good land He has given you.”
• Isa 44:15It serves as fuel for man. He takes some of it to warm himself, and he kindles a fire and bakes his bread; he even fashions it into a god and worships it; he makes an idol and bows down to it.
• 2 Sam 21:6let seven of his male descendants be delivered to us so that we may hang them before the LORD at Gibeah of Saul, the chosen of the LORD.” “I will give them to you,” said the king.
• John 15:23–24Whoever hates Me hates My Father as well.
• 1 Kgs 21:29“Have you seen how Ahab has humbled himself before Me? Because he has humbled himself before Me, I will not bring the calamity during his days, but I will bring it upon his house in the days of his son.”
• 2 Kgs 17:35For the LORD had made a covenant with the Israelites and commanded them, “Do not worship other gods or bow down to them; do not serve them or sacrifice to them.
• 2 Sam 21:1During the reign of David there was a famine for three successive years, and David sought the face of the LORD. And the LORD said, “It is because of the blood shed by Saul and his family, because he killed the Gibeonites.”
• Lev 20:5then I will set My face against that man and his family and cut off from among their people both him and all who follow him in prostituting themselves with Molech.
• Deut 32:21They have provoked My jealousy by that which is not God; they have enraged Me with their worthless idols. So I will make them jealous by those who are not a people; I will make them angry by a nation without understanding.
• Deut 7:10But those who hate Him He repays to their faces with destruction; He will not hesitate to repay to his face the one who hates Him.
• Job 21:19It is said that God lays up one’s punishment for his children. Let God repay the man himself, so he will know it.
• 2 Kgs 17:41So these nations worshiped the LORD but also served their idols, and to this day their children and grandchildren continue to do as their fathers did.
• Prov 6:34–35For jealousy enrages a husband, and he will show no mercy in the day of vengeance.

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.