6 Bible Verses about Backsliding, Israel Exanples

Then all the congregation of the children of Israel moved on from the Wilderness of Sin by stages, according to the commandment of the Lord, and camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water so we may [have something to] drink.” And Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you tempt the Lord and try His patience?” But the people were thirsty for water; and the people murmured against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us up from Egypt to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?” read more.
So Moses cried out to the Lord for help, saying, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” Then the Lord said to Moses, “Pass before the people and take with you some of the elders of Israel; and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb; there you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may [have something to] drink.” And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. He named the place [where this miracle occurred] Massah (test) and Meribah (contention) because of the quarreling of the sons of Israel, and because they tested the [patience of the] Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us, or not?”

Now when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, they gathered together before Aaron and said to him, “Come, make us a god who will go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” So Aaron replied to them, “Take off the gold rings that are in the ears of your wives, your sons and daughters, and bring them to me.” So all the people took off the gold rings that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. read more.
And he took the gold from their hands, and fashioned it with an engraving tool and made it into a molten calf; and they said, “This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.” Now when Aaron saw the molten calf, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made a proclamation, and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord!” So they got up early the next day and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; then the people sat down to eat and drink, and got up to play [shamefully—without moral restraint]. Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go down at once, for your people, whom you brought up from the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them. They have made themselves a molten calf, and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!’” The Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, they are a stiff-necked (stubborn, rebellious) people. Now therefore, let Me alone and do not interfere, so that My anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them; and I will make of you (your descendants) a great nation.” But Moses appeased and entreated the Lord his God, and said, “Lord, why does Your anger burn against Your people whom You have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil [intent] their God brought them out to kill them in the mountains and destroy them from the face of the earth’? Turn away from Your burning anger and change Your mind about harming Your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel (Jacob), Your servants to whom You swore [an oath] by Yourself, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heavens, and all this land of which I have spoken I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’” So the Lord changed His mind about the harm which He had said He would do to His people. Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hand; tablets that were written on both sides—they were written on one side and on the other. The tablets were the work of God; the writing was the writing of God engraved on the tablets. Now when Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, “There is a sound of battle in the camp.” But Moses said,

“It is not the sound of the cry of victory,
Nor is it the sound of the cry of defeat;
But I hear the sound of singing.” And as soon as he approached the camp and he saw the calf and the dancing, Moses’ anger burned; and he threw the tablets from his hands and smashed them at the foot of the mountain. Then Moses took the calf they had made and burned it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and scattered it on the surface of the water and made the Israelites drink it. Then Moses said to Aaron, “What did this people do to you, that you have brought so great a sin on them?” Aaron said, “Do not let the anger of my lord burn; you know the people yourself, that they are prone to evil. For they said to me, ‘Make us a god who will go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ I said to them, ‘Let whoever has gold [jewelry], take it off.’ So they gave it to me; then I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.” Now when Moses saw that the people were out of control—for Aaron had let them get out of control to the point of being an object of mockery among their enemies— then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, “Whoever is on the Lord’s side, come to me!” And all the sons of Levi [the priestly tribe] gathered together to him. He said to them, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel, ‘Every man strap his sword on his thigh and go back and forth from gate to gate throughout the camp, and every man kill his brother, and every man his friend, and every man his neighbor [all who continue pagan worship].’” So the sons of Levi did as Moses instructed, and about three thousand men of the people [of Israel] were killed that day. Then Moses said [to the Levites], “Dedicate yourselves today to the Lord—for each man has been against his own son and his own brother [in his attempt to escape execution]—so that He may restore and bestow His blessing on you this day.” Then the next day Moses said to the people, “You have committed a great sin. Now I will go up to the Lord; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.” So Moses returned to the Lord, and said, “Oh, these people have committed a great sin [against You], and have made themselves a god of gold. Yet now, if You will, forgive their sin—and if not, please blot me out of Your book which You have written (kill me)!” But the Lord said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot him out of My book [not you]. But now go, lead the people [to the place] where I have told you. Behold, My Angel shall go before you; nevertheless, in the day when I punish, I will punish them for their sin!” So the Lord struck the people with a plague, because of what they had done with the calf which Aaron had made [for them].

But lusted intensely in the wilderness
And tempted God [with their insistent desires] in the desert.

So He gave them their request,
But sent a wasting disease among them.
They envied Moses in the camp,
And Aaron [the high priest], the holy one of the Lord,
read more.

Therefore the earth opened and swallowed Dathan,
And engulfed the company of Abiram.

And a fire broke out in their company;
The flame consumed the wicked.
They made a calf in Horeb (Sinai)
And worshiped a cast image.

Thus they exchanged [the true God who was] their glory
For the image of an ox that eats grass.

They forgot God their Savior,
Who had done such great things in Egypt,

Wonders in the land of Ham,
Awesome things at the Red Sea.

Therefore He said He would destroy them,
[And He would have done so] had not Moses, His chosen one, stepped into the gap before Him,
To turn away His wrath from destroying them.

Then they despised the pleasant land [of Canaan];
They did not believe in His word nor rely on it,

But they sulked and complained in their tents;
They did not listen to the voice of the Lord.

Therefore He lifted up His hand [swearing] to them,
That He would cause them to fall in the wilderness,

And that He would cast out their descendants among the nations
And scatter them in the lands [of the earth].
They joined themselves also to [the idol] Baal of Peor,
And ate sacrifices offered to the dead.

Thus they provoked Him to anger with their practices,
And a plague broke out among them.

Then Phinehas [the priest] stood up and interceded,
And so the plague was halted.

And that was credited to him for righteousness,
To all generations forever.
They provoked Him to anger at the waters of Meribah,
So that it went hard with Moses on their account;

Because they were rebellious against His Spirit,
Moses spoke recklessly with his lips.

Then Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of a hundred and ten. And they buried him in the territory of his inheritance in Timnath-heres, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash. Also, all [the people of] that generation were gathered to their fathers [in death]; and another generation arose after them who did not know (recognize, understand) the Lord, nor even the work which He had done for Israel. read more.
Then the Israelites did evil in the sight of the Lord and worshiped and served the Baals, and they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt. They followed other gods from the gods of the peoples who were around them, and they bowed down to them, and offended and provoked the Lord to anger. So they abandoned the Lord and served Baal [the pagan god of the Canaanites] and the Ashtaroth. So the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and He gave them into the hands (power) of plunderers who robbed them; and He sold them into the hands of their surrounding enemies, so that they could no longer stand [in opposition] before their enemies. Wherever they went, the hand of the Lord was against them for evil (misfortune), as the Lord had spoken, and as the Lord had sworn to them, so that they were severely distressed. Then the Lord raised up judges who rescued them from the hands of those who robbed them. Yet they did not listen to their judges, for they played the prostitute after other gods and they bowed down to them. They quickly turned aside from the way in which their fathers had walked in obeying the commandments of the Lord; they did not do as their fathers. When the Lord raised up judges for them, He was with the judge and He rescued them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who oppressed and afflicted them. But when the judge died, they turned back and behaved more corruptly than their fathers, in following and serving other gods, and bowing down to them. They did not abandon their practices or their stubborn ways. So the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and He said, “Because this nation has transgressed (violated) My covenant (binding agreement) which I commanded their fathers, and has not listened to My voice, I also will no longer drive out before them any of the nations which Joshua left [to be conquered] when he died, in order to test [the loyalty of] Israel by them, whether Israel will keep the way of the Lord to walk in it, as their fathers did, or not.” So the Lord allowed those nations to remain, not driving them out at once; and He did not give them into the hand of Joshua.

They did not destroy the [pagan] peoples [in Canaan],
As the Lord commanded them,

But they mingled with the [idolatrous] nations
And learned their ways,

And served their idols,
Which became a [dreadful] snare to them.
read more.

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.

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”].
Therefore the anger of the Lord was kindled against His people
And He detested His own inheritance.

He gave them into the hands of the nations,
And those who hated them ruled over them.

Their enemies also oppressed them,
And they were subdued under the [powerful] hand of their enemies.

Many times He rescued them;
But they were rebellious in their counsel,
And sank down in their wickedness.

Did not Solomon king of Israel sin [greatly against God] regarding these things? Yet among the many nations there was no king like him. He was loved by his God, and God made him king over all Israel; nevertheless the foreign women caused even him to sin [by turning to other gods and so, judged by God, he lost his kingdom].