Your altars will be demolished and your incense altars will be smashed; and I will cast down your slain before your idols.
Parallel translations
- WEB Your altars will become desolate, and your incense altars will be broken. I will cast down your slain men before your idols.
- KJV And your altars shall be desolate, and your images shall be broken: and I will cast down your slain men before your idols.
- NKJV Then your altars shall be desolate, your incense altars shall be broken, and I will cast down your slain men before your idols.
- NASB So your altars will become deserted and your incense altars will be smashed; and I will make your slain fall in front of your idols.
- NLT All your altars will be demolished, and your places of worship will be destroyed. I will kill your people in front of your idols.
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
Altars will be ruined, incense altars broken, and the slain cast before their idols. The objects of false worship are exposed as powerless to save.
Overview
God promises to demolish the idolatrous altars and lay the dead before the very idols they trusted. The scene proves the impotence of false gods, which cannot protect their worshipers. By judging idolatry so pointedly, God presses His people to abandon lifeless images and return to the living God who alone gives life.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- 2 Chr 14:5He also removed the high places and incense altars from all the cities of Judah, and under him the kingdom was at peace.
- Lev 26:30I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars, and heap your lifeless bodies on the lifeless remains of your idols; and My soul will despise you.
- 2 Kgs 23:16–20And as Josiah turned, he saw the tombs there on the hillside, and he sent someone to take the bones out of the tombs, and he burned them on the altar to defile it, according to the word of the LORD proclaimed by the man of God who had foretold these things.
- Jer 43:13He will demolish the sacred pillars of the temple of the sun in the land of Egypt, and he will burn down the temples of the gods of Egypt.’”
- Jer 8:1–2“At that time,” declares the LORD, “the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of the officials, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the people of Jerusalem will be removed from their graves.
- 2 Chr 34:4–5Then 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.
- Ezek 6:13Then you will know that I am the LORD, when their slain lie among their idols around their altars, on every high hill, on all the mountaintops, and under every green tree and leafy oak—the places where they offered fragrant incense to all their idols.
- 1 Kgs 13:2And he cried out against the altar by the word of the LORD, “O altar, O altar, this is what the LORD says: ‘A son named Josiah will be born to the house of David, and upon you he will sacrifice the priests of the high places who burn incense upon you, and human bones will be burned upon you.’”
- Ezek 6:5–6I will lay the corpses of the Israelites before their idols and scatter your bones around your altars.
- 2 Kgs 23:14He smashed the sacred pillars to pieces, cut down the Asherah poles, and covered the sites with human bones.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
The promise of one Shepherd-King David, a new heart and new Spirit, and the river of life flowing from the temple all stream toward Christ, the good Shepherd who gives the Spirit.
How Ezekiel 6:4 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
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