So David and his men went up to Baal Perazim. There David won the battle over the Philistines. He said,“ God has broken through against my enemies, just as water breaks through a dam.” That’s why the place was called Baal Perazim.The Philistines had left statues of their gods there. So David gave orders to burn them up.
So here is what you must do to those people. Break down their altars. Smash their sacred stones. Cut down the poles they use to worship the female god named Asherah. Burn the statues of their gods in the fire.
They have thrown the statues of the gods of those nations into the fire. And they have destroyed them. That’s because they weren’t really gods at all. They were nothing but statues made out of wood and stone. They were made by human hands.
They carried the ark into the temple of their god Dagon. They set it down beside the statue of Dagon.The people of Ashdod got up early the next day. They saw the statue of Dagon. There it was, lying on the ground! It had fallen on its face in front of the ark of the Lord. So they picked up the statue of Dagon. They put it back in its place.But the following morning when they got up, they saw the statue of Dagon. There it was, lying on the ground again! It had fallen on its face in front of the ark of the Lord. Its head and hands had been broken off. Only the body of the statue was left. Its head and hands were lying in the doorway of the temple.That’s why to this day no one steps on the bottom part of the doorway of Dagon’s temple at Ashdod. Not even the priests of Dagon step there.The Lord’ s power was against the people of Ashdod and the settlements near it. He destroyed them. He made them suffer with growths in their bodies.
Burn the statues of their gods in the fire. Don’t wish for the silver and gold on those statues. Don’t take it for yourselves. If you do, it will be a trap for you. The Lord your God hates it.
The gods named Bel and Nebo are brought down in shame. The statues of them are being carried away on the backs of animals. They used to be carried around by the people who worshiped them. But now they’ve become a heavy load for tired animals.The gods named Bel and Nebo are brought down in shame together. They aren’t able to save their own statues. They themselves are carried off as prisoners.
He will set the temples of the gods of Egypt on fire. He will burn down their temples. He will take away the statues of their gods. Nebuchadnezzar will be like a shepherd who picks his coat clean of lice. Nebuchadnezzar will pick Egypt clean and then depart.
