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But this is how you must deal with them:(A) Tear down their altars, smash their sacred pillars, chop down their asherahs,[a] and destroy their idols by fire.

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Footnotes

  1. 7:5 Sacred pillars…asherahs: cut or uncut stones and wooden poles or trees (cf. 16:21) that had some cultic function. Fairly common religious artifacts, their association with the non-Israelite cults of Canaan and perhaps with Canaanite gods and goddesses, specifically the goddess Asherah, led to their condemnation in the Deuteronomic reform and possibly earlier.

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)

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Footnotes

  1. Deuteronomy 7:5 That is, wooden symbols of the goddess Asherah; here and elsewhere in Deuteronomy