Deuteronomy 4:15-20

Idolatry Forbidden

¹⁵ _v "Therefore watch yourselves very carefully. Since _w you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, ¹⁶ beware _x lest you act corruptly _y by making a carved image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, _z the likeness of male or female, ¹⁷ the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, ¹⁸ the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth. ¹⁹ And beware lest you raise your eyes to heaven, and when you see _a the sun and the moon and the stars, _b all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them, things that the Lord your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven. ²⁰ But the Lord has taken you and _c brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, _d to be a people of his own inheritance, as you are this day.

1. Cross References
   Joshua 23:11
   Be very careful, therefore, to love the Lord your God.
   
2. Cross References
   Deuteronomy 4:12
   Then the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words, but saw no form; there was only a voice.
   
3. Cross References
   Deuteronomy 4:25
   When you father children and children's children, and have grown old in the land, if you act corruptly by making a carved image in the form of anything, and by doing what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God, so as to provoke him to anger.
   
4. Cross References
   Deuteronomy 4:23
   Take care, lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which he made with you, and make a carved image, the form of anything that the Lord your God has forbidden you.
   Deuteronomy 5:8
   'You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
   Exodus 20:4
   You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
   Acts 17:29
   Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man.
   
5. Cross References
   Romans 1:23
   And exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
   
6. Cross References
   Deuteronomy 17:3
   And has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun or the moon or any of the host of heaven, which I have forbidden.
   Job 31:26 - 28
   If I have looked at the sun when it shone, or the moon moving in splendor.
   
7. Cross References
   2 Kings 17:16
   And they abandoned all the commandments of the Lord their God, and made for themselves metal images of two calves; and they made an Asherah and worshiped all the host of heaven and served Baal.
   2 Kings 21:3
   For he rebuilt the high places that Hezekiah his father had destroyed, and he erected altars for Baal and made an Asherah, as Ahab king of Israel had done, and worshiped all the host of heaven and served them.
   Genesis 2:1
   Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
   
8. Cross References
   1 Kings 8:51
   ( for they are your people, and your heritage, which you brought out of Egypt, from the midst of the iron furnace).
   Jeremiah 11:4
   That I commanded your fathers when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, from the iron furnace, saying, Listen to my voice, and do all that I command you. So shall you be my people, and I will be your God.
   
9. Cross References
   Deuteronomy 9:29
   For they are your people and your heritage, whom you brought out by your great power and by your outstretched arm.
   Deuteronomy 32:9
   But the Lord 's portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage.