And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles.
Parallel translations
- WEB and traded the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and four-footed animals, and creeping things.
- KJV And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
- BSB and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images of mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
- NKJV and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.
- NASB and they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible mankind, of birds, four-footed animals, and crawling creatures.
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
They exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images of mortal creatures. Idolatry is trading the Creator's glory for created substitutes.
Overview
Paul describes idolatry as a tragic exchange: the incorruptible glory of God swapped for images resembling perishable humans, birds, animals, and reptiles. The language echoes Israel's golden-calf sin and Psalm 106:20. Idolatry inverts the created order, giving to creatures the worship due to the Creator alone, and degrades those who practice it.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 15
- Ps 106:20Thus they exchanged their glory for an image of a bull that eats grass.
- Jer 2:11Has a nation changed its gods, which really are no gods? But my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit.
- Acts 17:29Being then the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold, or silver, or stone, engraved by art and design of man.
- 1 Pet 4:3For we have spent enough of our past time doing the desire of the Gentiles, and having walked in lewdness, lusts, drunken binges, orgies, carousings, and abominable idolatries.
- Rom 1:25who exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
- Ps 115:5–8They have mouths, but they don’t speak. They have eyes, but they don’t see.
- Deut 5:8“You shall not make an engraved image for yourself, any likeness of what is in heaven above, or what is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
- Ezek 8:10So I went in and looked, and saw every form of creeping things, abominable animals, and all the idols of the house of Israel, portrayed around on the wall.
- Ps 135:15–18The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands.
- Deut 4:15–18Be very careful, for you saw no kind of form on the day that Yahweh spoke to you in Horeb out of the middle of the fire,
- Isa 40:18To whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare to him?
- Isa 44:13The carpenter stretches out a line. He marks it out with a pencil. He shapes it with planes. He marks it out with compasses, and shapes it like the figure of a man, with the beauty of a man, to reside in a house.
- Isa 40:26Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these, who brings out their army by number. He calls them all by name. by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power, Not one is lacking.
- 1 Cor 12:2You know that when you were heathen, you were led away to those mute idols, however you might be led.
- Rev 9:20The rest of mankind, who were not killed with these plagues, didn’t repent of the works of their hands, that they wouldn’t worship demons, and the idols of gold, and of silver, and of brass, and of stone, and of wood; which can’t see, hear, or walk.
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Christ at the center
Paul unfolds the gospel in full: Christ our righteousness received by faith, the second Adam in whom many are made righteous, in whose death and resurrection we are buried and raised.
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Original language
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