³⁰ And now you have surely gone because you greatly long for your father’s house, but why did you ^(A)steal my gods?”

²⁴ So he said, “You have ^(A)taken away my ^[a]gods which I made, and the priest, and you have gone away. Now what more do I have? How can you say to me, ‘What ails you?’ ”

¹⁹ Now Laban had gone to shear his sheep, and Rachel had stolen the ^(A)household^[a] idols that were her father’s.

¹¹ Thus you shall say to them: ^(A)“The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth ^(B)shall perish from the earth and from under these heavens.”

^12 [a]I will kindle a fire in the houses of ^(A)the gods of Egypt, and he shall burn them and carry them away captive. And he shall array himself with the land of Egypt, as a shepherd puts on his garment, and he shall go out from there in peace.

Dead Idols and the Living God

¹⁹ and have cast their gods into the fire; for they were ^(A)not gods, but the work of men’s hands—wood and stone. Therefore they destroyed them.

²¹ And they left their ^[a]images there, and David and his men ^(A)carried them away.

² When the Philistines took the ark of God, they brought it into the house of ^(A)Dagon^[a] and set it by Dagon. ³ And when the people of Ashdod arose early in the morning, there was Dagon, ^(B)fallen on its face to the earth before the ark of the Lord. So they took Dagon and ^(C)set it in its place again. ⁴ And when they arose early the next morning, there was Dagon, fallen on its face to the ground before the ark of the Lord. ^(D)The head of Dagon and both the palms of its hands were broken off on the threshold; only ^[b]Dagon’s torso was left of it. ⁵ Therefore neither the priests of Dagon nor any who come into Dagon’s house ^(E)tread on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod to this day.

⁶ But the ^(F)hand of the Lord was heavy on the people of Ashdod, and He ^(G)ravaged them and struck them with ^(H)tumors,^[c] both Ashdod and its ^(I)territory.