So the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. They forgot the Lord their God, and served the Baals and Asherahs.
Parallel translations
- WEB The children of Israel did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, and forgot Yahweh their God, and served the Baals and the Asheroth.
- KJV And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and forgat the LORD their God, and served Baalim and the groves.
- BSB So the Israelites did evil in the sight of the LORD; they forgot the LORD their God and served the Baals and the Asherahs.
- NASB So the sons of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and they forgot the Lord their God and served the Baals and the Asheroth.
- NLT The Israelites did evil in the Lord’s sight. They forgot about the Lord their God, and they served the images of Baal and the Asherah poles.
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
Israel does evil, forgets the LORD their God, and serves the Baals and Asheroth. It matters as the formal beginning of the first cycle of judgment and deliverance.
Overview
This verse restarts the cycle: Israel forgets Yahweh and serves Canaanite idols. 'Forgot' captures the spiritual amnesia of the generation that did not know God's works. Their idolatry provokes the discipline that follows, opening the first of the recurring patterns of sin, oppression, crying out, and deliverance that structure the book.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 16
- Exod 34:13but you shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and you shall cut down their Asherah poles;
- Deut 4:9Only be careful, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes saw, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life; but make them known to your children and your children’s children;
- 2 Kgs 23:6He brought out the Asherah from Yahweh’s house, outside of Jerusalem, to the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron, and beat it to dust, and cast its dust on the graves of the common people.
- 2 Kgs 23:14He broke in pieces the pillars, cut down the Asherah poles, and filled their places with men’s bones.
- 1 Kgs 16:33Ahab made the Asherah; and Ahab did more yet to provoke Yahweh, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him.
- 2 Chr 24:18They abandoned the house of Yahweh, the God of their fathers, and served the Asherah poles and the idols, so wrath came on Judah and Jerusalem for this their guiltiness.
- Deut 16:21You shall not plant for yourselves an Asherah of any kind of tree beside Yahweh your God’s altar, which you shall make for yourselves.
- Judg 2:11–13The children of Israel did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, and served the Baals.
- 2 Chr 33:19His prayer also, and how God was entreated of him, and all his sin and his trespass, and the places in which he built high places, and set up the Asherah poles and the engraved images, before he humbled himself: behold, they are written in the history of Hozai.
- 1 Kgs 18:19Now therefore send, and gather to me all Israel to Mount Carmel, and four hundred fifty of the prophets of Baal, and four hundred of the prophets of the Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table.”
- 2 Chr 15:16Also Maacah, the mother of Asa the king, he removed from being queen, because she had made an abominable image for an Asherah; so Asa cut down her image, ground it into dust, and burned it at the brook Kidron.
- Judg 6:25That same night, Yahweh said to him, “Take your father’s bull, even the second bull seven years old, and throw down the altar of Baal that your father has, and cut down the Asherah that is by it.
- Judg 3:12The children of Israel again did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, and Yahweh strengthened Eglon the king of Moab against Israel, because they had done that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight.
- 2 Chr 33:3For he built again the high places which Hezekiah his father had broken down; and he raised up altars for the Baals, made Asheroth, and worshiped all the army of the sky, and served them.
- 2 Chr 34:7He broke down the altars, and beat the Asherah poles and the engraved images into powder, and cut down all the incense altars throughout all the land of Israel, then returned to Jerusalem.
- 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, the Asherah poles, the engraved images, and the molten images.
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Christ at the center
Israel's cycle of sin and rescue through flawed deliverers cries out for a Savior who never fails — the true and final Judge and Deliverer who saves his people not for a season but forever.
How Judges 3:7 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.