Renouncing Occult Practices and Idolatry

¹And God spoke all these words: ²“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. ³You shall have no other gods before Me. ⁴You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in the heavens above, on the earth below, or in the waters beneath. ⁵You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on their children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, ⁶but showing loving devotion to a thousand generations of those who love Me and keep My commandments.

²⁶You must not eat anything with blood still in it. You must not practice divination or sorcery. ³¹You must not turn to mediums or spiritists; do not seek them out, or you will be defiled by them. I am the LORD your God.

⁹When you enter the land that the LORD your God is giving you, do not imitate the detestable ways of the nations there. ¹⁰Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, practices divination or conjury, interprets omens, practices sorcery, ¹¹casts spells, consults a medium or spiritist, or inquires of the dead. ¹²For whoever does these things is detestable to the LORD. And because of these detestable things, the LORD your God is driving out the nations before you. ¹³You must be blameless before the LORD your God. ¹⁴Though these nations, which you will dispossess, listen to conjurers and diviners, the LORD your God has not permitted you to do so.

¹⁹When men tell you to consult mediums and spiritists who whisper and mutter, shouldn’t a people consult their God instead? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living? ²⁰To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn.

⁹Prior to that time, a man named Simon had practiced sorcery in the city and astounded the people of Samaria. He claimed to be someone great, ¹⁰and all the people, from the least to the greatest, heeded his words and said, “This man is the divine power called the Great Power.” ¹¹They paid close attention to him because he had astounded them for a long time with his sorcery. ¹²But when they believed Philip as he preached the gospel of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. ¹³Even Simon himself believed and was baptized. He followed Philip closely and was astounded by the great signs and miracles he observed. ¹⁴When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. ¹⁵On their arrival, they prayed for them to receive the Holy Spirit. ¹⁶For the Holy Spirit had not yet fallen upon any of them; they had simply been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. ¹⁷Then Peter and John laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit. ¹⁸When Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money. ¹⁹“Give me this power as well,” he said, “so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.” ²⁰But Peter replied, “May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money! ²¹You have no part or share in our ministry, because your heart is not right before God. ²²Repent, therefore, of your wickedness, and pray to the Lord. Perhaps He will forgive you for the intent of your heart. ²³For I see that you are poisoned by bitterness and captive to iniquity.” ²⁴Then Simon answered, “Pray to the Lord for me, so that nothing you have said may happen to me.”

¹⁶One day as we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl with a spirit of divination, who earned a large income for her masters by fortune-telling. ¹⁷This girl followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are proclaiming to you the way of salvation!” ¹⁸She continued this for many days. Eventually Paul grew so aggravated that he turned and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” And the spirit left her at that very moment.

¹¹God did extraordinary miracles through the hands of Paul, ¹²so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and the diseases and evil spirits left them. ¹³Now there were some itinerant Jewish exorcists who tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those with evil spirits. They would say, “I command you by Jesus, whom Paul proclaims.” ¹⁴Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. ¹⁵But one day the evil spirit responded, “Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you?” ¹⁶Then the man with the evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all. The attack was so violent that they ran out of the house naked and wounded. ¹⁷This became known to all the Jews and Greeks living in Ephesus, and fear came over all of them. So the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high honor. ¹⁸Many who had believed now came forward, confessing and disclosing their deeds. ¹⁹And a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books and burned them in front of everyone. When the value of the books was calculated, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas. ²⁰So the word of the Lord powerfully continued to spread and prevail.

¹⁴Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. ¹⁵I speak to reasonable people; judge for yourselves what I say. ¹⁶Is not the cup of blessing that we bless a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? ¹⁷Because there is one loaf, we who are many are one body; for we all partake of the one loaf. ¹⁸Consider the people of Israel: Are not those who eat the sacrifices fellow partakers in the altar? ¹⁹Am I suggesting, then, that food sacrificed to an idol is anything, or that an idol is anything? ²⁰No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God. And I do not want you to be participants with demons. ²¹You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot partake in the table of the Lord and the table of demons too. ²²Are we trying to provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He?

¹⁹The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, and debauchery; ²⁰idolatry and sorcery; hatred, discord, jealousy, and rage; rivalries, divisions, factions, ²¹and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

⁸See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, which are based on human tradition and the spiritual forces of the world rather than on Christ. ⁹For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity dwells in bodily form. ¹⁰And you have been made complete in Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority. ¹¹In Him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of your sinful nature, with the circumcision performed by Christ and not by human hands. ¹²And having been buried with Him in baptism, you were raised with Him through your faith in the power of God, who raised Him from the dead. ¹³When you were dead in your trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our trespasses, ¹⁴having canceled the debt ascribed to us in the decrees that stood against us. He took it away, nailing it to the cross! ¹⁵And having disarmed the powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

²¹Little children, keep yourselves from idols.