⁵ This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles^[a](A) and burn their idols in the fire.^(B)

²⁴ Do not bow down before their gods or worship^(A) them or follow their practices.^(B) You must demolish^(C) them and break their sacred stones^(D) to pieces.

² Destroy completely all the places on the high mountains,^(A) on the hills and under every spreading tree,^(B) where the nations you are dispossessing worship their gods. ³ Break down their altars, smash^(C) their sacred stones and burn^(D) their Asherah^(E) poles in the fire; cut down the idols of their gods and wipe out their names^(F) from those places.

¹³ Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and cut down their Asherah poles.^[a](A)

²⁵ That same night the Lord said to him, “Take the second bull from your father’s herd, the one seven years old.^[a] Tear down your father’s altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah pole^[b](A) beside it. ²⁶ Then build a proper kind of^[c] altar to the Lord your God on the top of this height. Using the wood of the Asherah pole that you cut down, offer the second^[d] bull as a burnt offering.^(B)”

²² and do not erect a sacred stone,^(A) for these the Lord your God hates.

²¹ Also I took that sinful thing of yours, the calf you had made, and burned it in the fire. Then I crushed it and ground it to powder as fine as dust^(A) and threw the dust into a stream that flowed down the mountain.^(B)

²⁵ The images of their gods you are to burn^(A) in the fire. Do not covet^(B) the silver and gold on them, and do not take it for yourselves, or you will be ensnared^(C) by it, for it is detestable^(D) to the Lord your God.

Reward for Obedience

26 “‘Do not make idols^(A) or set up an image^(B) or a sacred stone^(C) for yourselves, and do not place a carved stone^(D) in your land to bow down before it. I am the Lord your God.