Joshua 24:2

If it seems evil to you to serve Yahweh, choose today whom you will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell; but as for me and my house, we will serve Yahweh.”

Elijah came near to all the people, and said, “How long will you waver between the two sides? If Yahweh is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.” The people didn’t say a word.

I said to you, “I am Yahweh your God. You shall not fear the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell.” But you have not listened to my voice.’ ”

You shall not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor follow their practices, but you shall utterly overthrow them and demolish their pillars.

Then Jacob said to his household, and to all who were with him, “Put away the foreign gods that are among you, purify yourselves, change your garments.

“Now therefore fear Yahweh, and serve him in sincerity and in truth. Put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River, in Egypt; and serve Yahweh.

“Now therefore put away the foreign gods which are among you, and incline your heart to Yahweh, the God of Israel.”

Samuel spoke to all the house of Israel, saying, “If you are returning to Yahweh with all your heart, then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you, and direct your hearts to Yahweh, and serve him only; and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.”

Unless the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac, had been with me, surely now you would have sent me away empty. God has seen my affliction and the labor of my hands, and rebuked you last night.”

The God of Abraham, and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge between us.” Then Jacob swore by the fear of his father, Isaac.

Now, Israel, what does Yahweh your God require of you, but to fear Yahweh your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, and to serve Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul,

Only fear Yahweh, and serve him in truth with all your heart; for consider what great things he has done for you.

He said, “Brothers and fathers, listen. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran,

which none of the rulers of this world has known. For had they known it, they wouldn’t have crucified the Lord of glory.

However at that time, not knowing God, you were in bondage to those who by nature are not gods.

not in the passion of lust, even as the Gentiles who don’t know God,

Terah took Abram his son, Lot the son of Haran, his son’s son, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife. They went from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan. They came to Haran and lived there.

Sarai said to Abram, “This wrong is your fault. I gave my servant into your bosom, and when she saw that she had conceived, she despised me. May Yahweh judge between me and you.”

For I have known him, to the end that he may command his children and his household after him, that they may keep the way of Yahweh, to do righteousness and justice; to the end that Yahweh may bring on Abraham that which he has spoken of him.”

Now Laban had gone to shear his sheep; and Rachel stole the teraphim that were her father’s.

It is in the power of my hand to hurt you, but the God of your father spoke to me last night, saying, ‘Be careful that you don’t speak to Jacob either good or bad.’

Now, you want to be gone, because you greatly longed for your father’s house, but why have you stolen my gods?”

Anyone you find your gods with shall not live. Before our relatives, discern what is yours with me, and take it.” For Jacob didn’t know that Rachel had stolen them.

With whomever of your servants it is found, let him die, and we also will be my lord’s slaves.”

He said, “I am God, the God of your father. Don’t be afraid to go down into Egypt, for there I will make of you a great nation.

The sons of Joseph, who were born to him in Egypt, were two souls. All the souls of the house of Jacob, who came into Egypt, were seventy.

They also said to Pharaoh, “We have come to live as foreigners in the land, for there is no pasture for your servants’ flocks. For the famine is severe in the land of Canaan. Now therefore, please let your servants dwell in the land of Goshen.”

Yahweh said to Moses, “Go to the people, and sanctify them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments,

Your fathers went down into Egypt with seventy persons; and now Yahweh your God has made you as the stars of the sky for multitude.

You shall answer and say before Yahweh your God, “My father was a Syrian ready to perish. He went down into Egypt, and lived there, few in number. There he became a great, mighty, and populous nation.

Therefore I have not sinned against you, but you do me wrong to war against me. May Yahweh the Judge be judge today between the children of Israel and the children of Ammon.”

The man Micah had a house of gods, and he made an ephod, and teraphim, and consecrated one of his sons, who became his priest.

He said, “You have taken away my gods which I made, and the priest, and have gone away! What more do I have? How can you ask me, ‘What ails you?’ ”

If you will fear Yahweh, and serve him, and listen to his voice, and not rebel against the commandment of Yahweh, then both you and also the king who reigns over you are followers of Yahweh your God.

Michal took the teraphim, and laid it in the bed, and put a pillow of goats’ hair at its head, and covered it with clothes.

Moreover Josiah removed those who had familiar spirits, the wizards, and the teraphim, and the idols, and all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, that he might confirm the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in Yahweh’s house.

Yahweh’s voice is on the waters. The God of glory thunders, even Yahweh on many waters.

I have sworn, and have confirmed it, that I will obey your righteous ordinances.

Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who bore you; for when he was but one I called him, I blessed him, and made him many.

“How can I pardon you? Your children have forsaken me, and sworn by what are no gods. When I had fed them to the full, they committed adultery, and assembled themselves in troops at the prostitutes’ houses.

and say, ‘The Lord Yahweh says to Jerusalem: “Your origin and your birth is of the land of the Canaanite. An Amorite was your father, and your mother was a Hittite.

As for your birth, in the day you were born your navel was not cut. You weren’t washed in water to cleanse you. You weren’t salted at all, nor wrapped in blankets at all.

You are the daughter of your mother, who loathes her husband and her children; and you are the sister of your sisters, who loathed their husbands and their children. Your mother was a Hittite, and your father an Amorite.

“Son of man, those who inhabit the waste places in the land of Israel speak, saying, ‘Abraham was one, and he inherited the land; but we are many. The land is given us for inheritance.’

Lest I strip her naked, and make her bare as in the day that she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and kill her with thirst.

For the children of Israel shall live many days without king, and without prince, and without sacrifice, and without sacred stone, and without ephod or idols.

“Brothers and fathers, listen to the defense which I now make to you.”

Where then is the boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith.

For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not toward God.

For seeing that in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom didn’t know God, it was God’s good pleasure through the foolishness of the preaching to save those who believe.

that you were at that time separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

Terah lived seventy years, and became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

I will make of you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great. You will be a blessing.

Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time, Canaanites were in the land.

They gave to Jacob all the foreign gods which were in their hands, and the rings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem.

They took their livestock, and their goods, which they had gotten in the land of Canaan, and came into Egypt—Jacob, and all his offspring with him,

The children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and grew exceedingly mighty; and the land was filled with them.

Moses went down from the mountain to the people, and sanctified the people; and they washed their clothes.

You shall be blameless with Yahweh your God.

I will be careful to live a blameless life. When will you come to me? I will walk within my house with a blameless heart.

Therefore Yahweh, who redeemed Abraham, says concerning the house of Jacob: “Jacob shall no longer be ashamed, neither shall his face grow pale.

Have the gods of the nations delivered them, which my fathers have destroyed, Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the children of Eden who were in Telassar?

Your first father sinned, and your teachers have transgressed against me.

For the king of Babylon stood at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination. He shook the arrows back and forth. He consulted the teraphim. He looked in the liver.

Don’t you know that when you present yourselves as servants and obey someone, you are the servants of whomever you obey; whether of sin to death, or of obedience to righteousness?

that, as it is written, “He who boasts, let him boast in the Lord.”

Therefore concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that no idol is anything in the world, and that there is no other God but one.

being darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardening of their hearts.

punishing those who don’t know God, and to those who don’t obey the Good News of our Lord Jesus,

Nahor lived twenty-nine years, and became the father of Terah.

Now Rachel had taken the teraphim, put them in the camel’s saddle, and sat on them. Laban felt around all the tent, but didn’t find them.

God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant in the earth, and to save you alive by a great deliverance.

There I will provide for you; for there are yet five years of famine; lest you come to poverty, you, and your household, and all that you have.” ’

“You shall not follow a crowd to do evil. You shall not testify in court to side with a multitude to pervert justice.

lest there should be among you man, woman, family, or tribe whose heart turns away today from Yahweh our God, to go to serve the gods of those nations; lest there should be among you a root that produces bitter poison;

“Go, gather together all the Jews who are present in Susa, and fast for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day. I and my maidens will also fast the same way. Then I will go in to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.”

“ ‘As for you, house of Israel, the Lord Yahweh says: “Go, everyone serve his idols, and hereafter also, if you will not listen to me; but you shall no more profane my holy name with your gifts and with your idols.

They played the prostitute in Egypt. They played the prostitute in their youth. Their breasts were fondled there, and their youthful nipples were caressed there.

“Did you bring to me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, house of Israel?

the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, the son of Terah, the son of Nahor,

Jacob went down into Egypt and he died, himself and our fathers,

who, when he had come, and had seen the grace of God, was glad. He exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart they should remain near to the Lord.

Servants, be obedient to those who according to the flesh are your masters, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as to Christ,

Serug lived thirty years, and became the father of Nahor.

Abram (also called Abraham).

But to him who doesn’t work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness.