“Do not put your trust in idols or make metal images of gods for yourselves. I am the Lord your God.
Parallel translations
- WEB “‘Don’t turn to idols, nor make molten gods for yourselves. I am Yahweh your God.
- KJV Turn ye not unto idols, nor make to yourselves molten gods: I am the LORD your God.
- BSB Do not turn to idols or make for yourselves molten gods. I am the LORD your God.
- NKJV ‘Do not turn to idols, nor make for yourselves molded gods: I am the Lord your God.
- NASB Do not turn to idols or make for yourselves cast metal gods; I am the Lord your God.
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 must not turn to idols or make cast images, for Yahweh alone is their God.
Overview
Echoing the first and second commandments, this guards Israel's exclusive devotion to the Lord. Idols are dismissed as worthless counterfeits unworthy of worship. The command protects the heart of true religion: wholehearted loyalty to the one true God, which Jesus affirmed as the greatest commandment.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- Lev 26:1“‘You shall make for yourselves no idols, and you shall not raise up an engraved image or a pillar, and you shall not place any figured stone in your land, to bow down to it; for I am Yahweh your God.
- Exod 20:23You shall most certainly not make alongside of me gods of silver, or gods of gold for yourselves.
- Exod 34:17“You shall make no cast idols for yourselves.
- Ps 115:4–7Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands.
- Exod 20:3–5“You shall have no other gods before me.
- Deut 27:15‘Cursed is the man who makes an engraved or molten image, an abomination to Yahweh, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and sets it up in secret.’ All the people shall answer and say, ‘Amen.’
- 1 Cor 10:14Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.
- Ps 96:5For all the gods of the peoples are idols, but Yahweh made the heavens.
- 1 Jn 5:21Little children, keep yourselves from idols.
- Exod 32:4He received what they handed him, and fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made it a molten calf; and they said, “These are your gods, Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt.”
- Hag 2:18‘Consider, please, from this day and backward, from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, since the day that the foundation of Yahweh’s temple was laid, consider it.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Every sacrifice, every priest, and every day of atonement points beyond itself to the one perfect offering and the great High Priest who, by his own blood, makes the unclean holy once for all.
How Leviticus 19:4 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.