Pictured to the left is a copy of a version of the Holy Bible, known as the KING JAMES VERSION ( KJV ); being entitled: The Scofield Study Bible. Exodus 20:3 reads as follows: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." The word "idolatry" is defined as follows: "n. pl. -tries 1 The worship of idols. . . ." [ See NEW ILLUSTRATED WEBSTER'S DICTIONARY Including THESAURUS of SYNONYMS & ANTONYMS, PMC Publishing Company, Inc., 118 EAST 28th STREET, NEW YORK, NY 10016, dictionary portion: pages 1-1150, Copyright 1992, by J.G. Ferguson Publishing Company, Chicago, Illinois, p. 481. ]
The above-given passage from the Holy Bible, the first commandment, clearly condemns idolatry. Jesus ( see Matthew 4:10 ) said the following to the devil ( the tempter - cf. Matthew 4:3, 5, and 8 ) in Matthew 4:10: "Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." Likewise, idolatry is condemned by Jesus' statement.
A fertility cult, an example of idolatry, is defined and described as follows:
"A general term for religions marked by rites which reenact a myth accounting for the orderly change of the seasons and the earth's fruitfulness. Such myths often involve a great mother-goddess as a symbol of fertility and a male deity, usually her consort but sometimes a son, who like vegetation dies and returns to life again. . . . Fertility cults attribute the fertility of the cropland and herds to the sexual relations of the divine couple. Sacral sexual intercourse by priests and priestesses or by cult prostitutes was an act of worship intended to emulate the gods and share in their powers of procreation or else an act of imitative magic by which the gods were compelled to preserve the earth's fertility (1 Kings 14:23; 15:12; Hos. 4:14). . . ." [ See HOLMAN BIBLE DICTIONARY, BUTLER, TRENT C., PH.D., HOLMAN BIBLE PUBLISHERS, NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE, Copyright 1991 Holman Bible Publishers, p. 484. ]
Idolatry, the worship of false gods, is false religion. Prostitution is a sin ( see Proverbs 5:1-14, Romans 15:4, 1 Corinthians 6:13-18 ( especially verse 18, for example ), Hebrews 13:4, and 1 John 3:4, for example ). Anyone who engages in prostitution is practicing a form of idolatry, which is condemned in the Holy Bible: the Holy Bible is God's word ( see Psalm 119:65-72, 142, 151, John 1:1, 14, 3:16, 17; 7:16; 8:26; 10:30; 14:6; 17:17, Romans 1:20, Colossians 2:8, 9, 2 Timothy 3:16, 17, Titus 1:1, 2, and 1 John 5:6-8, for example ). There is one true God ( see Deuteronomy 4:35 and John 17:3, for example ).
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