And your altars shall be desolate, and your images shall be broken: and I will cast down your slain men 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.
- BSB Your altars will be demolished and your incense altars will be smashed; and I will cast down your slain 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 14:5Also he took away out of all the cities of Judah the high places and the images: and the kingdom was quiet before him.
- Lev 26:30And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcases upon the carcases of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you.
- 2 Kgs 23:16–20And as Josiah turned himself, he spied the sepulchres that were there in the mount, and sent, and took the bones out of the sepulchres, and burned them upon the altar, and polluted it, according to the word of the LORD which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words.
- Jer 43:13He shall break also the images of Bethshemesh, that is in the land of Egypt; and the houses of the gods of the Egyptians shall he burn with fire.
- Jer 8:1–2At that time, saith the LORD, they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his princes, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves:
- 2 Chr 34:4–5And they brake down the altars of Baalim in his presence; and the images, that were on high above them, he cut down; and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images, he brake in pieces, and made dust of them, and strowed it upon the graves of them that had sacrificed unto them.
- Ezek 6:13Then shall ye know that I am the LORD, when their slain men shall be among their idols round about their altars, upon every high hill, in all the tops of the mountains, and under every green tree, and under every thick oak, the place where they did offer sweet savour to all their idols.
- 1 Kgs 13:2And he cried against the altar in the word of the LORD, and said, O altar, altar, thus saith the LORD; Behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men’s bones shall be burnt upon thee.
- Ezek 6:5–6And I will lay the dead carcases of the children of Israel before their idols; and I will scatter your bones round about your altars.
- 2 Kgs 23:14And he brake in pieces the images, and cut down the groves, and filled their places with the bones of men.
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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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