But you shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves:
But you shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves:
but ye shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and ye shall cut down their Asherim;
But their altars are to be overturned and their pillars broken and their images cut down:
But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves.
but you shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and you shall cut down their Asherim;
but ye shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and ye shall cut down their Asherim:
Ye shall destroy their images - See the subjects of this and all the following verses, to Exodus 34:28, treated at large in the notes on Exodus 23 (note).
Cut down their groves - This is the first reference to what is commonly known as grove-worship. The original word for "grove" in this connection אשׁרה 'ăshêrāh is different from that so rendered in Genesis 21:33. Our translators supposed that what the law commands is the destruction of groves dedicated to the worship of false deities Judges 6:25; 2 Kings 18:4; but inasmuch as the worship of asherah is found associated with that of Astarte, or Ashtoreth Judges 2:13; Judges 10:6; 1 Samuel 7:4, it seems probable that while Astarte was the personal name of the goddess, the asherah was a symbol of her, probably in some one of her characters, made in wood in some conventional form.