68 Bible Verses about False Religion

So then, being God’s children, we should not think that the Divine Nature (deity) is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination or skill of man.

And there you will serve [false and foreign] gods, the work of human hands, [lifeless images of] wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell [the offerings of food given to them].

The idols [of the nations] are silver and gold,
The work of man’s hands.

They have mouths, but they cannot speak;
They have eyes, but they cannot see;

They have ears, but they cannot hear;
They have noses, but they cannot smell;
read more.

They have hands, but they cannot feel;
They have feet, but they cannot walk;
Nor can they make a sound with their throats.

The idols of the nations are silver and gold,
The work of men’s hands.

They have mouths, but they do not speak;
They have eyes, but they do not see;

They have ears, but they do not hear,
Nor is there any breath in their mouths.

Who has made a god or cast an idol which is profitable for nothing? In fact, all his companions will be put to shame, for the craftsmen themselves are mere men. Let them all assemble, let them stand up, let them be terrified, let them together be put to shame. The ironsmith shapes iron and uses a chisel and works it over the coals. He forms the [idol’s] core with hammers and works it with his strong arm. He also becomes hungry and his strength fails; he drinks no water and grows tired. read more.
The carpenter stretches out a measuring line, he marks out the shape [of the idol] with red chalk; he works it with planes and outlines it with the compass; and he makes it like the form of a man, like the beauty of man, that it may sit in a house. He cuts cedars for himself, and takes a cypress or an oak and lets it grow strong for himself among the trees of the forest. He plants a fir, and the rain nourishes it. Then it becomes fuel for a man to burn, so he takes one of them and warms himself; he also kindles a fire to bake bread. He also makes a god [from the same wood] and worships it. He makes it into a carved idol [with his own hands] and falls down and worships it! He burns half of the wood in the fire; over this half he [cooks and] eats meat, he roasts meat and is satisfied. Also he warms himself and says, “Aha! I am warm, I have seen the fire.” But from what is left of the wood he makes a god, his carved idol. He falls down before it, he worships it and prays to it and says, “Save me, for you are my god.” They do not know, nor do they understand, for God has muddied their eyes so that they cannot see, and their hearts (minds) as well so that they cannot understand. No one remembers, nor has knowledge and understanding [enough] to say [to himself], “I have burned half of this log in the fire, and also baked bread on its coals and have roasted meat and eaten it. Then I make the rest of it into an repulsive thing [to God]; I bow down [to worship] before a block of wood!” That kind of man (the idolater) feeds on ashes [and is satisfied with ashes]! A deceived mind has led him astray, so that he cannot save himself, or ask, “Is this thing [that I am holding] in my right hand not a lie?”

For the customs and decrees of the peoples are [mere] delusion [exercises in futility];
It is only wood which one cuts from the forest [to make a god],
The work of the hands of the craftsman with the axe or cutting tool.

“They adorn the idol with silver and with gold;
They fasten it with hammers and nails
So that it will not fall apart.

“They are like scarecrows in a cucumber field;
They cannot speak;
They have to be carried,
Because they cannot walk!
Do not be afraid of them,
For they can do no harm or evil,
Nor can they do any good.”

“Can a man make gods for himself?
Such [things] are not gods!

Then the herald loudly proclaimed, “You are commanded, O peoples, nations, and speakers of every language, that at the moment you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon (four-stringed harp), dulcimer, bagpipe, and all kinds of music, you are to fall down and worship the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up. Whoever does not fall down and worship shall immediately be thrown into the midst of a furnace of blazing fire.” read more.
So when the people heard the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, dulcimer, bagpipe and all kinds of music, all the peoples, nations, and speakers of every language fell down and worshiped the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up.

You see and hear that not only at Ephesus, but almost all over [the province of] Asia, this Paul has persuaded [people to believe his teaching] and has misled a large number of people, claiming that gods made by [human] hands are not really gods at all.

because [by choice] they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

For he rebuilt the high places [for the worship of pagan gods] which his father Hezekiah had destroyed; and he set up altars for Baal and made an [image of] Asherah, just as Ahab king of Israel had done, and he worshiped all the [starry] host of heaven and served them.

He built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord.

They will [carelessly scatter and] spread them out before the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven, which the dead have loved and which they have served, and which they have walked after and which they have sought, and which they have worshiped. They will not be gathered or be buried; they will be like dung on the face of the earth.

The houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah will be defiled like this place, Topheth, all the houses on whose rooftops incense has been burned to all the host of heaven (sun, moon, stars), and where drink offerings have been poured out to other gods.”’”

So He brought me to the inner court of the Lord’s house. And behold, at the entrance to the temple of the Lord, between the porch (vestibule, portico) and the [bronze] altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs to the temple of the Lord and their faces toward the east; and they were bowing down toward the east and worshiping the sun.

They fell down and worshiped the dragon because he gave his authority to the beast; they also worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like (as great as) the beast, and who is able to wage war against him?”

On an appointed day Herod dressed himself in his royal robes, sat on his throne (tribunal, rostrum) and began delivering a speech to the people. The assembled people kept shouting, “It is the voice of a god and not of a man!” And at once an angel of the Lord struck him down because he did not give God the glory [and instead permitted himself to be worshiped], and he was eaten by worms and died [five days later].

All the inhabitants of the earth will fall down and worship him, everyone whose name has not been written since the foundation of the world in the Book of Life of the Lamb who has been slain [as a willing sacrifice].

“They sacrificed to demons, not to God,
To gods whom they have not known,
New gods who came lately,
Whom your fathers never feared.

So they shall no longer offer their sacrifices to goat-idols or demons or field spirits with which they have played the prostitute. This shall be a permanent statute for them throughout their generations.”’

They even sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons

And shed innocent blood,
Even the blood of their sons and of their daughters,
Whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan;
And the land was polluted with their blood.

On the contrary, the things which the Gentiles (pagans) sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons [in effect], and not to God; and I do not want you to become partners with demons [by eating at feasts in pagan temples].

The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent even then of the works of their hands, so as to cease worshiping and paying homage to the demons and the idols of gold and of silver and of bronze and of stone and of wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk;

See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception [pseudo-intellectual babble], according to the tradition [and musings] of mere men, following the elementary principles of this world, rather than following [the truth—the teachings of] Christ.

nor to pay attention to legends (fables, myths) and endless genealogies, which give rise to useless speculation and meaningless arguments rather than advancing God’s program of instruction which is grounded in faith [and requires surrendering the entire self to God in absolute trust and confidence].

O Timothy, guard and keep safe the deposit [of godly truth] entrusted to you, turn away from worldly and godless chatter [with its profane, empty words], and the contradictions of what is falsely called “knowledge”—

For they also built for themselves high places [to worship idols] and sacred pillars and Asherim [for the goddess Asherah]. These were on every high hill and under every luxuriant tree. There were also male cult prostitutes in the land. They committed all the repulsive acts of the nations which the Lord dispossessed before the Israelites.

You took some of your clothes and made for yourself [decorated] high places and shrines of various colors and prostituted yourself on them—things which should never have come about and taken place. You also took your beautiful jewels and beautiful vessels made of My gold and My silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself images of men so that you could prostitute yourself with them;

They sacrifice on the tops of the mountains
And burn incense on the hills,
Under oaks, poplars, and terebinths,
Because the shade is pleasant there.
Therefore your daughters play the prostitute
And your brides commit adultery.

I will not punish your daughters when they play the prostitute
Or your brides when they commit adultery,
For the men themselves slip away with prostitutes,
And they offer sacrifices with temple prostitutes [who give their bodies in honor of the idol].
So the people without understanding [stumble and fall and] come to ruin.

They made their sons and their daughters pass through the fire [as human sacrifices], and used divination [to foretell the future] and enchantments; and they sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking Him to anger.

You shall not give any of your children to offer them [by fire as a sacrifice] to Molech [the god of the Ammonites], nor shall you profane the name of your God [by honoring idols as gods]. I am the Lord.

You must not turn away, for then you would go after futile things which cannot profit or rescue, because they are futile.

Go, cry out to the gods you have chosen; let them rescue you in your time of distress.”

As midday passed, they played the part of prophets and raved dramatically until the time for offering the evening sacrifice; but there was no voice, no one answered, and no one paid attention.

Did the gods of the nations whom my forefathers destroyed rescue them—Gozan and Haran [of Mesopotamia] and Rezeph and the people of Eden who were in Telassar?

Did the gods of the nations which my fathers destroyed rescue them—Gozan, Haran [of Mesopotamia], Rezeph, and the sons of Eden who were in Telassar?

So it will come to pass when Moab presents himself,
When he wearies himself [worshiping] on his high place [of idolatry]
And comes to his sanctuary [of Chemosh, god of Moab] to pray,
That he will not prevail.

But from what is left of the wood he makes a god, his carved idol. He falls down before it, he worships it and prays to it and says, “Save me, for you are my god.” They do not know, nor do they understand, for God has muddied their eyes so that they cannot see, and their hearts (minds) as well so that they cannot understand. No one remembers, nor has knowledge and understanding [enough] to say [to himself], “I have burned half of this log in the fire, and also baked bread on its coals and have roasted meat and eaten it. Then I make the rest of it into an repulsive thing [to God]; I bow down [to worship] before a block of wood!” read more.
That kind of man (the idolater) feeds on ashes [and is satisfied with ashes]! A deceived mind has led him astray, so that he cannot save himself, or ask, “Is this thing [that I am holding] in my right hand not a lie?”

“Assemble yourselves and come;
Come together, you survivors of the nations!
They are ignorant,
Who carry around their wooden idols [in religious processions or into battle]
And keep on praying to a god that cannot save them.

“They lift it on their shoulders [in religious processions or into battle] and carry it;
They set it in its place and there it remains standing.
It cannot move from its place.
Even if one cries to it [for help], the idol cannot answer;
It cannot save him from his distress.

“When you cry out [for help], let your [ridiculous] collection of idols save you.
But the wind will carry them all away,
A [mere] breath will take them.
But he who takes refuge in Me will possess the land [Judea]
And will inherit My holy mountain.”

Then the cities of Judah and the people of Jerusalem will go and cry to the [man-made] gods to whom they burn incense, but they cannot save them in the time of their disaster.

“Those who regard and follow worthless idols
Turn away from their [living source of] mercy and lovingkindness.

“But woe (judgment is coming) to you, [self-righteous] scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven in front of people; for you do not enter yourselves, nor do you allow those who are [in the process of] entering to do so.

Woe to you lawyers, because you have taken away the key to knowledge (scriptural truth). You yourselves did not enter, and you held back those who were entering [by your flawed interpretation of God’s word and your man-made tradition].”

among them the god of this world [Satan] has blinded the minds of the unbelieving to prevent them from seeing the illuminating light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

They rejected His statutes and His covenant which He made with their fathers, as well as His warnings that he gave them. And they followed vanity [that is, false gods, idols] and became vain (empty-headed). They followed the [pagan practices of the] nations which surrounded them, although the Lord had commanded that they were not to do as they did.

In this way they became unclean in their practices;
They played the prostitute in their own deeds [by giving their worship, which belongs to God alone, to other “gods”].

Those who make them will become like them,
Everyone who trusts in them.

Those who make idols are like them [absolutely worthless—spiritually blind, deaf, and powerless];
So is everyone who trusts in and relies on them.

All who make carved idols are nothing. Their precious objects are worthless [to them], and their own witnesses (worshipers) fail to see or know, so that they will be put to shame.

Thus says the Lord,

“What injustice or unrighteousness did your fathers find in Me,
That they have wandered far from Me
And [habitually] walked after emptiness and futility and became empty?

“But I said to their children in the wilderness, ‘Do not walk in the statutes of your fathers nor observe their ordinances nor defile yourselves with their idols.

Israel settled and remained in Shittim, and the people began to play the prostitute with the women of Moab [by being unfaithful to God]. For they invited the Israelites to the sacrifices of their gods, and the Israelites ate [food offered to idols] and bowed down to Moab’s gods.

So Israel joined themselves to Baal of Peor [in worship]. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel.

and exchanged the glory and majesty and excellence of the immortal God for an image [worthless idols] in the shape of mortal man and birds and four-footed animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their own hearts to [sexual] impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them [abandoning them to the degrading power of sin], because [by choice] they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. read more.
For this reason God gave them over to degrading and vile passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural [a function contrary to nature], and in the same way also the men turned away from the natural function of the woman and were consumed with their desire toward one another, men with men committing shameful acts and in return receiving in their own bodies the inevitable and appropriate penalty for their wrongdoing. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God or consider Him worth knowing [as their Creator], God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do things which are improper and repulsive, until they were filled (permeated, saturated) with every kind of unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice and mean-spiritedness. They are gossips [spreading rumors], slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors [of new forms] of evil, disobedient and disrespectful to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful [without pity].

The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent even then of the works of their hands, so as to cease worshiping and paying homage to the demons and the idols of gold and of silver and of bronze and of stone and of wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk; and they did not repent of their murders nor of their sorceries (drugs, intoxications) nor of their [sexual] immorality nor of their thefts.

But at that time, when you did not know [the true] God and were unacquainted with Him, you [Gentiles] were slaves to those [pagan] things which by [their very] nature were not and could not be gods at all.

beware that you are not lured (ensnared) into following them, after they have been destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods, so that I too may do likewise?’

So also we [whether Jews or Gentiles], when we were children (spiritually immature), were kept like slaves under the elementary [man-made religious or philosophical] teachings of the world.

I will first doubly repay and punish them for their wickedness and their sin [before I return them to their land], because they have profaned My land; they have filled My inheritance with the carcasses of their detestable idols and with their abominations.”

Now behold, there came a man of God from Judah to Bethel by the word (command) of the Lord, while Jeroboam was standing by the altar [which he had built] to burn incense. The man cried out against the [idolatrous] altar by the word of the Lord, “O altar, altar, thus says the Lord: ‘Behold, a son shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name; and on you shall he sacrifice [the bodies of] the priests of the high places who burn incense on you, and human bones shall be burned on you.’” And he gave a sign the same day, saying, “This is the sign which the Lord has spoken: ‘Behold, the altar shall be split apart and the ashes that are on it shall be poured out.’”

Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them from His sight; none [of the tribes] was left except the tribe of Judah. Judah did not keep the commandments of the Lord their God either, but walked in the customs which Israel introduced. So the Lord rejected all the descendants of Israel (Jacob) and [repeatedly] afflicted them and handed them over to plunderers, until He had cast them out of His sight.read more.
When He had torn Israel from the [royal] house of David, they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king. And Jeroboam drove Israel away from following the Lord and made them commit a great sin. For the Israelites walked in all the [idolatrous] sins which Jeroboam committed; they did not turn from them until the Lord removed Israel from His sight, just as He had foretold through all His servants the prophets. So Israel went into exile from their own land to Assyria to this day [the date of this writing].

“Many nations will pass by this city; and each man will say to another, ‘Why has the Lord done this to this great city?’ Then they will answer, ‘Because the people ignored and abandoned the [solemn] covenant with the Lord their God and worshiped other gods and served them.’”

“I will also cut off your carved images
And your sacred pillars from among you,
So that you will no longer worship and bow down
To the work of your hands.

“I will root out your Asherim (symbols of the goddess Asherah) from among you
And destroy your cities [which are the centers of pagan worship].

“And in anger and wrath I shall execute vengeance
On the nations which have not obeyed [such vengeance as they have not known before].”

The Lord has given a command concerning you [O king of Nineveh]:
“Your name will no longer be perpetuated.
I will cut off the carved idols and cast images
From the temple of your gods;
I will prepare your grave,
For you are vile and unworthy.”

“I will also stretch out My hand [in judgment] against Judah
And against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
And I will cut off and destroy the remnant of Baal from this place,
And the names and remembrance of the idolatrous priests along with the [false] priests,

And those who bow down and worship the host of heaven [the sun, the moon, and the stars] on their housetops
And those who bow down and swear [oaths] to [and pretend to worship] the Lord and [yet also] swear by [the pagan god called] Milcom [god of the Ammonites],