Intolerance in the Bible


Genesis


God gives Abraham and his descendants all of the land of Canaan forever. This promise is still used to justify the unending battles over the land in the Middle East. 13:14-15, 17:8


An uncircumcised boy is to be abandoned by his parents and community. 17:14


God kills everyone (men, women, children, infants, newborns) in Sodom and Gomorrah by raining "fire and brimstone from the Lord out of heaven." Well, almost everyone -- he spares the "just and righteous" Lot and his family.19:24


Lot's nameless wife looks back, and God turns her into a pillar of salt. 19:26


Rebekah told Isaac she was weary of living with the daughters of Heth (Hittite women). Her life will be worthless if Jacob marries one of them. 27:46


Abraham makes his servant swear that he won't let Isaac marry a Canaanite. 24:3


Esau married two Hittite women, "which were a grief of mind to Isaac and Rebekah." (Because they were Hittites -- not because he married two women.) 26:34-35


Isaac tells Jacob not to marry a Canaanite. 28:1


Jacob's sons can't stand the idea of their sister marrying someone who is uncircumcised. 34:14


"And Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord; and the Lord slew him." What did Er do to elicit God's wrath? The Bible doesn't say. Maybe he picked up some sticks on Saturday. 38:7


After God killed Er, Judah tells Onan to "go in unto they brother's wife." But "Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and ... when he went in unto his brother's wife ... he spilled it on the ground.... And the thing which he did displeased the Lord; wherefore he slew him also." This lovely Bible story is seldom read in Sunday School, but it is the basis of many Christian doctrines, including the condemnation of both masturbation and birth control. 38:8-10


After Judah pays Tamar for her services, he is told that she "played the harlot" and "is with child by whoredom." When Judah hears this, he says, "Bring her forth, and let her be burnt." 38:24


Exodus


God decides to kill Moses because his son had not yet been circumcised. 4:24-26


God will kill the Egyptian children to show that he puts "a difference between the Egyptians and Israel." 11:7


After God has sufficiently hardened the Pharaoh's heart, he kills all the firstborn Egyptian children. When he was finished "there was not a house where there was not one dead." Finally, he runs out of little babies to kill, so he slaughters the firstborn cattle, too. 12:29


No stranger, foreigner, or uncircumcised person can eat the Passover. 12:43, 45, 48


If you do what God says, he won't send his diseases on you (like he did to the Egyptians). But otherwise.... 15:26


When the people complain to Moses, he tells them they aren't complaining about him, but about God, making them apostates and heretics, and therefore deserve severe punishment. Religious leaders have used this tactic ever since. 16:8


Joshua, with God's approval, kills the Amalekites "with the edge of the sword." 17:13


The Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation." 17:14


"The Lord has sworn [God swears!] that the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation." So God is still fighting Amalek. I hope Moses can still keep his hand up. 17:14-16


God favors Israelites "above all people." 19:5


The first commandment ("Thou shalt have no other gods before me.") condemns those who worship any other than the biblical god. 20:3


"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." Thousands of innocent women have suffered excruciating deaths because of this verse. 22:18


"He who sacrificeth unto any god, save unto the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed." If this commandment is obeyed, then the four billion people who do not believe in the biblical god must be killed. 22:20


Don't even mention the names of the other gods. 23:13


God will send an angel to help his people. If they obey him, God will be an enemy to their enemies, cutting them all off. 23:22-23


Do not allow others to worship a different god. Conquer them and destroy their religious property. 23:24


God promises to "send his fear before the Israelites" and to kill everyone that they encounter when they enter the promised land. 23:27


Stay away from those who worship a different god. 23:32


Don't let any strangers attend your animal sacrifices. 29:33


Whoever puts holy oil on a stranger shall be "cut off from his people." 30:33


Those who break the Sabbath are to be executed. 31:14


Moses burned the golden calf, ground it into powder, and then forced it down the throats of all the people. 32:20


God orders the sons of Levi (Moses, Aaron, and the other members of their tribe that were "on the Lord's side") to kill "every man his neighbor." "And there fell of the people that day about 3000 men." 32:27-28


"Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book." 32:33


God drives out the pagan tribes and commands the Israelites to destroy their altars and places of worship. 34:11-14


God, "whose name is Jealous", will not tolerate the worship of any other god. 34:14


"Thou shalt make thee no molten gods." 34:17


Whoever works, or even kindles a fire, on the Sabbath "shall be put to death." 35:2-3


Leviticus


Two of the sons of Aaron "offered strange fire before the Lord" and "there went out fire from the Lord, and devoured them, and they died before the Lord." 10:1-2


Moses tells Aaron that his sons were burned to death to sanctify and glorify God. 10:3


Moses tells Aaron's cousins to drag the burned bodies out of the camp, and he warns Aaron not to mourn the death of his sons or God will kill him too, along with everyone else. 10:4-6


"When ye be come into the land of Canaan ... I put the plague of leprosy in ... the land of your possession."


God "put the plague of leprosy" on the Canaanites. 14:34


Homosexual acts are an abomination to God. 18:22


"Keep my statutes and my judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations ... that the land spue not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you." 18:26-28


"Whosoever shall commit any of these abominations ... shall be cut off from among their people." 18:29


"Ye shall not eat any thing with the blood: neither shall ye use enchantment, nor observe times."


Don't eat anything with blood, or use magic or astrology. 19:26


"Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard."


Don't round the corners of your head or beard. 19:27


"Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you."


Don't get an tatoos. 19:28


Stay away from wizards and people with familiar spirits. 19:31


Stay away from people with familiar spirits and don't "go a whoring" after them either. 20:6


If a man has sex with another man, kill them both. 20:13


People with "familiar spirits" (witches, fortune tellers, etc.) are to be stoned to death. 20:27


Handicapped people cannot approach the altar of God. They would "profane" it. 21:16-23


No stranger or slave can "eat of the holy thing." 22:10, 13


If a priest's daughter marries "a stranger" she can't eat any holy things. 22:12


God won't accept animal sacrifices from strangers, since strangers have blemishes and are corrupt. 22:25


Don't do any work on the day of atonement or God will destroy you. 23:29-30


A man curses and blasphemes while disputing with another man. Moses asks God what to do about it. God says that the whole community must stone him to death. "And the children of Israel did as the Lord and Moses commanded." 24:10-23


Anyone who blasphemes or curses shall be stoned to death by the entire community. 24:16


God tells the Israelites to make slaves out of their neighbors and their families. The "heathens" and "strangers" are to be their possessions forever. 25:44-46


If you don't follow all of the laws in the Old Testament, God will shower you with all of the curses in the next 25 verses. 26:14-15


"I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart: and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it." 26:16


"I will set my face against you, and ye shall be slain before your enemies." 26:17


"And if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins." 26:18


"I will bring seven times more plagues upon you according to your sins." 26:21


"I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle." 26:22


"I ... will punish you yet (another) seven times for your sins." 26:24


"I will bring a sword upon you ... I will send the pestilence among you; and ye shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy." 26:25


"And if ye will not for all this hearken unto me ... then ... I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins." 26:27-28


"And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat." 26:29


"I will ... cast your carcases upon the carcases of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you." 26:30


"And I will make your cities waste." 26:31


"And I will bring the land into desolation". 26:32


"And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste." 26:33


"And upon them that are left alive of you I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee, as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursueth." 26:36


"And they shall fall one upon another, as it were before a sword, when none pursueth: and ye shall have no power to stand before your enemies." 26:37


"And ye shall perish among the heathen, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up." 26:38


"And they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies' lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them." 26:39


God defines the value of human life in dollars and cents. Of course, to God, females are worth considerably less than males (50 - 60%) -- but neither are worth much. 27:3-7


Numbers


God shows his hospitality with the admonition: "The stranger that cometh nigh shall be put to death." 1:51, 3:10, 3:38


Two of Aaron's sons are killed by God for "offering strange fire before the Lord." 3:4


All firstborn men and beasts belong to God, since God killed all the firstborn of Egypt. 3:13


God tells the people to expel from camp "every leper, every one that hath an issue, and whoever is defiled by the dead." So by God's instructions, the sick are abandoned and left to suffer and die alone. 5:1-4


"And when the people complained, it displeased the Lord: and the Lord heard it (He had his hearing aid on.) .... and his anger was kindled; and the fire of the LORD burnt among them, and consumed them."


God burned the complainers alive. That'll teach them! 11:1-2


The people begin to whine about not having any meat. So God says he'll give them meat, alright. He'll give them "flesh to eat," not for just a few days, but "for a whole month, until it come out of [their] nostrils, and it be loathsome to [them]." Yuck. 11:4, 19-20


"And while the flesh [of the quails] was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of the Lord was kindled against the people, and the Lord smote the people with a very great plague. "The Bible isn't too clear about what these poor folks did to upset God so much; all it says is that they had "lusted." 11:33


Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, the first freethought/democracy martyrs, refused to follow Moses blindly, saying that everyone is holy and should be free to think for him or herself. God killed them and their families for daring to challenge Moses. 16:1-35


Separate yourselves from among this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment."


God warns everyone to get away; he's going to kill some more people. 16:20-21


"Hereby ye shall know that the LORD hath sent me ... if the LORD make ... the earth open her mouth, and swallow them up, with all that appertain unto them, and they go down quick into the pit..."


Moses tells the people that if the ground opens up and swallows the rebels and their families, then you'll know that God's on his side. 16:28-30


"The earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah ... They ... went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them." 16:31-33


"And there came out a fire from the LORD, and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that offered incense." 16:35


After God killed Korah, his family, and 250 innocent bystanders, the people complained saying, "ye have killed the people of the Lord." So God, who doesn't take kindly to criticism, sends a plague on the people. And "they that died in the plague were 14,700." 16:41-50


"Get you up from among this congregation, that I may consume them as in a moment."


God threatens (again) to kill everyone (but his special friends, Moses and Aaron). 16:44-45


"For there is wrath gone out from the LORD; the plague is begun ... they that died in the plague were fourteen thousand and seven hundred." 16:46-49


"And the Lord hearkened to the voice of Israel, and delivered up the Canaanites; and they utterly destroyed them and their cities." This verse demonstrates the power of prayer: If you ask God, he will destroy entire cities for you. 21:3


God delivers the Amorites into Moses' hands. (You're in God hands with Moses.) So Moses does the usual thing, killing everyone "until their was none left alive." 21:34-35


After the people "commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab," Moses has them all killed. Then God tells Moses to hang their dead bodies up in front of him; God says that this will satisfy him. 25:1-5


When one of the Israelite men brings home a foreign woman, "Phinehas (Aaron's grandson) sees them and throws a spear "through the man .. and the woman through her belly." This act pleases God so much that "the plague was stayed from the children of Israel." But not before 24,000 had died. 25:6-9


For impaling the interracial couple, God rewards Phinehas and his sons with the everlasting priesthood. 25:10-13


God tells Moses how to care for his neighbors by saying: "Vex the Midianites, and smite them." 25:16-17


The ground swallow Korah and his companions and a fire consumes 250 men. 26:10


"And Nadab and Abihu died when they offered strange fire before the Lord." When you go camping avoid making any unusual fires. 26:61


Under God's direction, Moses' army defeats the Midianites. They kill all the adult males, but take the women and children captive. When Moses learns that they left some live, he angrily says: "Have you saved all the women alive? Kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves." So they went back and did as Moses (and presumably God) instructed, killing everyone except for the virgins. In this way they got 32,000 virgins -- Wow! (Even God gets some of the booty -- including the virgins.) 31:1-54


God killed all the Egyptian firstborn. 33:4


God tells Moses to exterminate the residents of Canaan and destroy all of their religious symbols and possessions. 33:50-52


But if the Israelites don't kill them all, then God will make them pricks in their eyes and thorns in their sides. And he will do unto the Israelites as he planned to do to the inhabitants of Canaan. 33:55-56


Deuteronomy


"God ... shall fight for you." 1:30


"The Lord destroyed them before them" -- the general treatment of the people who were supposedly displaced by the Israelites. 2:21-22


All nations shall be terrorized by the followers of Yahweh. 2:25


God hardened the heart of the king of Heshbon and so that he could have him and all of his people killed. 2:30


At God's instructions, the Israelites "utterly destroyed the men, women, and the little ones" leaving "none to remain." 2:33-36


God destroyed the followers of Baalpeor. 4:3


If someone makes an image of anything (like a bird or flower) then God will destroy the entire nation. 4:25-26


God brought the Israelites out of Egypt "by war ... and by great terrors." 4:34


The first commandment ("Thou shalt have no other gods before me.") condemns those who worship any other than the biblical god. 5:4


If you worship the wrong god, God will get jealous and kill you. 6:15


God instructs the Israelites to kill, without mercy, all the inhabitants (strangers) of the land that they conquer. 7:2


God forbids marriages with those of other tribes. 7:3


If you do show any mercy to such strangers, "give your daughters to any of them, or "take" any of their daughters, then you'll get God so angry that he'll "destroy thee suddenly." 7:4


Destroy the altars, images, and places of worship of those with different religions. 7:5


God prefers the Israelites to everyone else. It's not that he's prejudiced, he just like them better. 7:6


God will kill those who hate him. 7:10


God's favorite people will never be infertile (neither will their cows!) and will never get sick. (God will send infertility and diseases on the other guys.) 7:14-15


God commands his people to "consume all the people which the Lord thy God shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity on them." 7:16


God will send hornets to kill your enemies, "for the Lord thy God is among you, a mighty God and terrible." 7:20-23


"The LORD thy God shall deliver them unto thee, and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction, until they be destroyed." 7:23


Burn and "utterly detest" the religious symbols of other faiths. They are an abomination to God. If you bring such an image into your house you will become "a cursed thing like it." 7:25-26


"If thou do at all forget the LORD thy God, and walk after other gods ... ye shall surely perish." 8:19-20


God orders the destruction of all other places of worship. 12:2-3


After God kills those of other faiths, be sure to reject their beliefs and do not learn about them. Otherwise God will have to kill you too. 12:30


Prophets and dreamers are to be executed if they say or dream the wrong things. 13:1-5


If your brother, son, daughter, wife, or friend tries to get you to worship another god, "thou shalt surely kill him, thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death." 13:6-10


If you hear of a city where another god is worshiped, then destroy everyone in the city (even the cattle) and burn it down. (Watch out Salt Lake!) 13:12-16


The Israelites are a holy, chosen, peculiar people. God likes them better than anyone else. 14:2


Kill everyone who has religious beliefs that are different from your own. 17:2-7


Anyone who will not listen to a priest or a judge must be executed. 17:12-13


Wizards, witches, astrologers, and new age folks are all "an abomination unto the Lord." 18:10-12


False prophets are to be (you guessed it) executed. How do you know who is a false prophet? By whether or not their predictions come true. (Watch out Jehovah's Witnesses!) 18:20


Women are not to wear men's clothing and vice versa -- it's an "abomination unto the Lord." 22:5


God won't let bastards attend church. Neither can the sons or daughters of bastards "even to the tenth generation." So if you plan to attend church next Sunday be ready to prove that your genitals are intact and don't forget your birth certificate and genealogical records for at least the last ten generations. Don't laugh. This stuff is important to God. 23:2


No Moabite will ever be allowed into the congregation of the Lord. 23:3, 6


God says not to bring any whore, sodomite, or dog into the house of the Lord. For "these things are an abomination to the Lord." Sodomites and dogs are biblical names for homosexuals. 23:17-18


God commands the Israelites to "blot out the rembrance of Amalek from under heaven." A few hundred years later God orders Saul to kill of the Amalekites "both man and woman, infant and suckling." (1 Samuel 15:2-3) 25:19


If you don't obey all of the laws that are given in the Old Testament, God shower you with the curses that are given in the next 52 verses. 28:16-68


"Cursed shall be the fruit of thy body." 28:18


"The LORD shall send upon thee cursing, vexation, and rebuke, in all that thou settest thine hand unto for to do, until thou be destroyed, and until thou perish quickly." 28:20


"The LORD shall make the pestilence cleave unto thee, until he have consumed thee." 28:21


"The LORD shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies." 28:25


"And thy carcass shall be meat to all the fowls of the air, and no man shall fray them away." 28:26


"The Lord will smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and the emerods [hemorrhoids], and with the scab, and with the itch, whereof thou canst be healed." 28:27


"The Lord will smite thee with madness, and , and astonishment of heart." 28:28


"And thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness, and thou shalt not prosper in thy ways: and thou shalt be only oppressed and spoiled evermore, and no man shall save thee." 28:29


"Thine ox shall be slain before thine eyes ... thine ass shall be violently taken away." 28:31


"Thy sons and thy daughters shall be given unto another people." 28:32


You will be enslaved and driven mad in another country. 28:33-34


"The Lord will smite thee in the knees, and in the legs, with a sore botch that cannot be healed, from the sole of thy foot unto the top of thy head." 28:35


You will be ruled by other nations, forced to serve other gods, become a laughingstock among your neighbors, have your crops destroyed by locusts, your vines eaten by worms, and have fruitless olive trees. 28:36-40


"Thou shalt begat sons and daughters, but thou shall not enjoy them; for they shall go into captivity." 28:41


"All these curses shall come upon thee ... and upon thy seed for ever." 28:48-49


God will enslave you and destroy you with hunger, thirst, hardship, and all kinds of deprivation. 28:48-52


"And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters." 28:53


"So that the man that is tender among you, and very delicate, his eye shall be evil toward his brother, and toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the remnant of his children which he shall leave: So that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he shall eat." 28:54-55


"The tender and delicate woman" will be forced to eat her own children "that cometh out from between her feet." 28:56-57


"If thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book. Then the LORD will make thy plagues wonderful, and the plagues of thy seed ... Also every sickness, and every plague, which is not written in the book of this law, them will the LORD bring upon thee, until thou be destroyed." 28:58-61


If the Jews don't follow God's laws he'll have most of them killed. 28:62


"The LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you, and to bring you to nought." 28:63


"And the LORD shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other; and there thou shalt serve other gods." 28:64


"The LORD shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind." 28:65


"And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life." 28:66


"In the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning! for the fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see." 28:67


God will have you sold to your enemies -- but even they won't buy you. 28:68


If you serve the gods of other nations, "all the curses that are in this book" will fall upon you. 29:18-20


If you follow your own heart, God will curse you with all the curses in Deuteronomy 28:15-68. 29:19-20


"And the Lord will put all these curses upon thine enemies." See Deuteronomy 28:16-64 for some of the curses God has in mind. 30:7


Moses tells the people that God will destroy all the inhabitants of the lands that they pass through. 31:3


Humans were divided by God into groups; then God chose one group (the Israelites) as his favorite and gave all of his "inheritance" to them. 32:8-9


God hates non-believers. 32:19-20


When God gets mad -- watch out! He'll starve you to death, burn you with fire, and send vicious beasts to devour you. He'll "destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of gray hairs." Not even the helpless and innocent are spared by this psychotic God. 32:21-26


"For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains." 32:22


"I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows upon them." 32:23


"They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust." 32:24


"The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of gray hairs." 32:25


"I said, I would scatter them into corners, I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men." 32:26


Joshua


God "magnifies" Joshua and promises to "without fail" drive out all the inhabitants of the lands through which they passed. 3:7


"And the city shall be accursed ... and all that therein, to the Lord: only Rahab the harlot shall live." God explains that Rahab is to be spared since she hid Joshua's spies and lied to those who were searching for them (2:4-5). But why was everyone else killed? Some of them were probably liars too. 6:17


Keep yourselves from "the accursed thing". Whatever that is. But be sure to save all the silver and gold for God! 6:18-19


"And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword." 6:21


Joshua says that those who try to rebuild Jericho will be accursed by God, and will have to sacrifice both their oldest and their youngest sons in its construction. But Jericho still exists today, and is often considered to be the world's oldest, continuously occupied city. 6:26


Joshua says that those who try to rebuild Jericho will be accursed by God, and will have to sacrifice both their oldest and their youngest sons in its construction. Well, Jericho still exists today, and is often considered to be the world's oldest, continuously occupied city. 6:26


God tells Joshua to kill whoever took "the accursed thing." 7:10-12


Joshua and all the elders tear their clothes, fall on their faces, and put dust on their heads. They perform this tantrum because the Israelites lost a battle (God was punishing them because one man (Achan) "took of the accursed thing"). 7:1-13


If you happen to see "the accursed thing," don't touch it. If you do, you, your family, and all of your animals must be burned. 7:15


"And Joshua ... took Achan ... and his sons, and his daughters, and his oxen, and his sheep... And all of Israel stoned them with stones, and burned them with fire, after they had stoned them with stones." This is because Achan "took of the accursed thing" -- whatever that means. But why would God require that Achan's sons and daughters (and even his animals) be stoned to death along with him? The Bible doesn't say. But it does tell us that "the Lord turned from the fierceness of his anger" when Achan, his children, and his animals were stoned to death and their dead bodies burned. 7:24-26


"When ye have taken the city [Ai] ... ye shall set the city on fire: according to the commandment of the LORD. 8:8


"When Israel had made an end of slaying all the inhabitants of Ai in the field ... all the Israelites returned unto Ai, and smote it with the edge of the sword." 8:24


"All that fell that day, both of men and women, were twelve thousand." 8:25


"And the LORD said unto Joshua, Fear them not: for I have delivered them into thine hand."


God delivers the Amorites into Joshua's hand (so he can kill them all). 10:8


"And the LORD discomfited them before Israel, and slew them with a great slaughter at Gibeon, and chased them along the way."


God slaughters the Amorites and even chases them along the way. 10:10


"The LORD cast down great stones from heaven upon them ... and they died."


As the Amorites try to escape, God sends down huge hailstones and kills even more of them. 10:11


God tells Joshua to "pursue after your enemies and smite the hindmost of them." (Kick their butts.) Don't let any of them escape "for the Lord your God hath delivered them into your hand." 10:19


Joshua tells his captains to "put your feet upon the necks of these kings." He says, "thus shall the Lord do to all of your enemies." Then Joshua kills the kings and hangs them on trees. 10:24-26


"Thus shall the LORD do to all your enemies." 10:25


Joshua, at God's command, kills everyone and everything that he can find (including babies and little children)-- or, as the Bible puts it, he "utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord commanded." 10:28-32


"Joshua passed unto Eglon ... and smote it with the edge of the sword, and all the souls that were therein he utterly destroyed." 10:34-35


"Joshua went ... unto Hebron ... and smote it with the edge of the sword ... and all the cities ... and all the souls that were therein; he left none remaining." 10:36-37


"Joshua returned ... to Debir ... And he took it ... and all the cities ... and they smote them with the edge of the sword, and utterly destroyed all the souls that were therein; he left none remaining."10:38-39


"So Joshua ... left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the LORD God of Israel commanded." 10:40


"All these kings and their land did Joshua take at one time, because the LORD God of Israel fought for Israel." 10:42


God delivers the Hazorites into Joshua's hand, and he knows just what to do with them: he smites them all with (you guessed it) the edge of the sword until "there was not any left to breathe." 11:6-17


"And the LORD delivered them into the hand of Israel, who smote them ... and they smote them, until they left them none remaining." 11:8


"Joshua ... smote the king thereof with the sword." 11:10


"And they smote all the souls that were therein with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying them: there was not any left to breathe." 11:11


"And all the cities of those kings, and all the kings of them, did Joshua take, and smote them with the edge of the sword, and he utterly destroyed them, as Moses the servant of the LORD commanded." 11:12


"Every man they smote with the edge of the sword, until they had destroyed them, neither left they any to breathe." 11:14


"As the LORD commanded Moses his servant, so did Moses command Joshua, and so did Joshua; he left nothing undone of all that the LORD commanded Moses." 11:15


"So Joshua took ... all their kings ... and smote them, and slew them." 11:16-17


"For it was of the Lord to harden their hearts, that they should come against Israel in battle, that he might destroy them utterly." Notice that God hardens their hearts so that he can have an excuse to kill them. 11:20


"Joshua destroyed them utterly with their cities." 11:21


"Did not Achan son of Zerah commit a trespass in the accursed thing, and wrath fell on all the congregation of Israel?" To find out see Joshua 7:1-26. 22:20


"I plagued Egypt." 24:5


God brags about drowning the Egyptians. 24:7


"I delivered them into your hand." 24:11


God is jealous and will never forgive you for your sins. "He will turn and do you hurt, and consume you." 24:19-20


Judges


"They slew the Canaanites that inhabited Zephath, and utterly destroyed it ... And the Lord was with Judah." (You can tell by the number of innocent people he killed.) 1:17, 19


The Israelite spies killed everyone in Bethel, except for the man (and his family) who showed them how to enter the city. 1:25


An angel drops by to rebuke the Israelites for being too tolerant of the religious beliefs of the people they have been massacring. He tells them that since they didn't complete their job (of killing everyone), God will not completely drive them out (like he promised to do). Instead he'll keep some of them around so that the Israelites will be ensnared by their false gods. 2:1-3


God gets angry when the Israelites reject him and decide to worship other Gods. 2:12


God "delivers" more folks into the hands of his chosen people. "And they slew of Moab ... about 10,000 men ... and their escaped not a man." 3:28-29


Shamgar kills 600 Philistines with an ox goad. Praise God. 3:31


"The Lord discomfited Sisera ... with the edge of the sword ... and there was not a man left." 4:15-16


"So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord." (Let them all have their temples pierced by blessed women.) 5:31


"The LORD said unto him, Surely I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man." God promises to help Gideon kill all the Midianites. 6:16


"The LORD said unto him ... throw down the altar of Baal ... and cut down the grove."


God tells Gideon to vandalize his neighbors' places of worship. 6:25


"The altar of Baal was cast down, and the grove was cut down." 6:28


Two princes are killed and their heads are brought to Gideon. 7:25


For refusing to feed him and his army, Gideon swears that he'll tear the flesh off the elders of Succoth. (And he carries out his threat in verse 16.) 8:7


"He took the elders of the city, and thorns of the wilderness and briers, and with them he taught the men of Succoth." 8:16


"He beat down the tower of Penuel, and slew the men of the city." 8:17


"As soon as Gideon was dead ... the children of Israel ... went a whoring after Baalim." 8:33


"God ... delivered Sihon and all his people into the hand of Israel, and they smote them: so Israel possessed all the land of the Amorites." 11:21


"Whomsoever the LORD our God shall drive out from before us, them will we [the Israelites] possess." 11:24


"The LORD delivered them into his hands ... And he smote them ... even twenty cities ... with a very great slaughter." 11:32-33


"The children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the LORD; and the LORD delivered them into the hand of the Philistines forty years." 13:1


Samson, with God's help, kills himself and 3000 Philistine men and women by causing a roof to collapse, setting an example for Bible-based terrorism. 16:27-30


1 Samuel


"The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces; out of heaven shall he thunder upon them." If God doesn't like you, he'll send a thunderstorm your way to break your body into little pieces. 2:10


God will kill those who sin against him. 2:25


God kills 50,070 men for looking into the ark. "And the people lamented, because the Lord had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter." 6:19


"Saul ... slew the Ammorites unto the heat of the day." Then he took a little break. After all, killing is hard work. 11:11


To day the LORD hath wrought salvation in Israel."


God saved the Israelites by slaughtering the Ammonites. 11:13


God orders Saul to kill all of the Amalekites: men, women, infants, sucklings, ox, sheep, camels, and asses. Why? Because God remembers what Amalek did hundreds of years ago. 15:2-3


Saul killed everyone but Agag (the king) and the best of the animals. But still God was furious with Saul for not killing everything as he had been told to do. He said, "it repenteth me that I have set Saul up to be king." 15:7-26


Saul is rebuked by Samuel for "doing evil in the sight of the Lord" by failing to kill all of the Amalekites. 15:18-19


Because Saul didn't kill everyone as God commanded, God changes his mind about him being king. 15:23-26


To please God, Samuel hacks Agag in pieces "before the Lord" [I bet God enjoyed that!] -- after Agag pleads with him saying, "surely the bitterness of death has past." 15:32-34


"David went out, and fought with the Philistines, and slew them with a great slaughter." 19:8


"David inquired of the Lord, saying, Shall I go and smite these Philistines? And the Lord said unto David, Go, and smite the Philistines." 23:2


"Then David enquired of the LORD yet again. And the LORD answered him and said ... I will deliver the Philistines into thine hand." 23:4


"So David ... fought with the Philistines ... and smote them with a great slaughter." 23:5


"And David smote the land and left neither man nor woman alive." (No wonder God liked David so much!) 27:8-11


2 Samuel


David tells one of his "young men" to kill the Amalekite messenger who claimed to have mercifully killed Saul at Saul's own request. 1:15


David asks God if he should kill some more Philistines. God says yes, and he'll even help. So David and God "smote the Philistines" again. 5:19, 25


"They left their images, and David and his men burned them." 5:21


1 Kings


"The LORD said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall not go in to them, neither shall they come in unto you: for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods."


Note that Solomon is told to stay away from foreign women. Why? Because they have different ("strange") religious beliefs, and God disapproves of mixed-faith marriages. 11:2


His wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the LORD his God."


The wisest man that ever lived (1 Kings 4:31) was misled by his wives into worshipping other gods. 11:4


"For the LORD shall smite Israel ... because they have made their groves, provoking the LORD to anger." 14:15


"When she came to the threshold of the door, the child died."


To punish Jeroboam for making gold calves, God killed his son. 14:17


"There were also sodomites in the land: and they did according to all the abominations...."


God shows his homophobia by calling gay people "sodomites" and their sexual relations "abominations." 14:24


Asa "did that which was right in the eyes of the LORD" by expelling homosexuals (or "sodomites", as the good book calls them). 15:12


Baasha kills "all of the house of Jeroboam" leaving none "to breath." This slaughter was done "according to the word of the Lord." 15:29


Elijah kills 450 prophets of Baal. 18:22, 40


"Ben-hadad said unto him, The cities, which my father took from thy father, I will restore ... Then said Ahab, I will send thee away with this covenant. So he made a covenant with him, and sent him away."


King Ahab is merciful to king Beh-hada. God will later kill him for it. (See 1 Kings 20:42 and 22:35) 20:34


Thus saith the LORD, Because thou hast let go out of thy hand a man whom I appointed to utter destruction, therefore thy life shall go for his life, and thy people for his people."


The prophet tells king Ahab that he will be killed and his people punished for not killing Ben-hadad: "Your life shall go for his life, and your people for his people." 20:42


Naboth is stoned to death for blaspheming god and the king. 21:13


Jehoshaphat "did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord" and "took" the homosexuals (sodomites) "out of the land," or as the RSV says, "he exterminated" them. 22:43, 46


2 Kings


Ahaziah was sick and sent messengers to Baalzebub to ask if he would recover. God was jealous of the attention given to his competitor and tells Ahaziah that he will die for asking the wrong god. 1:2-8


God kills Ahaziah for consulting another God. 1:16-17


God sends two bears to rip up 42 little children for making fun of Elisha's bald head. 2:23-24


All seventy of king Ahab's sons are killed, their heads put in baskets, and sent to Jezreel. He says, "Lay ye them in two heaps ..." 10:7-8


Jehu kills all that remained of king Ahab's family. 10:11


Jehu shows off his zeal for the Lord by murdering "all that remained unto Ahab in Samaria, till he had destroyed him according to the word of the Lord." 10:16-17


Jehu lied to the followers of Baal so that he could trap and kill them. 10:19


Jehu warns his guards saying, "If any of the men escape, he that letteth him go, his life shall be for the life of him." 10:24


Jehu, when he finishes his animal sacrifices, orders his men to "Go in, and slay them, let none come forth. And they smote them with the edge of the sword." 10:25


God is greatly pleased with all of Jehu's killings, saying "because thou hast done well in executing that which is right in mine eyes, and hast done unto the house of Ahab according to all that was in mine heart [Jehu murdered them all], thy children of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel." 10:30


The "Lord's people" destroyed the "house of Baal" and killed "the priest of Baal before the altars." 11:17-18


God strikes king Azariah with leprosy "unto the day of his death" for not removing the high places. 15:5


God sent lions to devour the foreigners in Samaria because "they feared not the Lord," and even worse "they knew not the manner of the God of the land." 17:25-26


King Josiah (with God's approval) "put down" the priests and destroyed the sacred objects of all other religions. 23:4-6


Josiah, with God's approval, broke down the houses of the sodomites. 23:7


Josiah, apparently with God's approval, kills "all the priests of the high places" and sacrifices them to God on their altars. Note that this is a guy who "did what was right in the eyes of the Lord" (2 Kings 22:2). 23:20


1 Chronicles


The sons of Reuben made war with the Hagarites and "there fell down many slain, because the war was from God." They did pretty well for themselves, too, in God's war, taking 250,000 sheep and 100,000 slaves. 5:18-22


But the Israelites "transgressed against the God of their fathers, and went a whoring after the gods of the people of the land, whom God destroyed before them." So God inspired the Assyrians to enslave the Israelites. 5:25-26


"Phinehas ... the LORD was with him."


See Numbers 25:7-8 to see what he did when the Lord was with him. 9:20


Saul died for refusing God's order to kill all of the Amalekites (1 Sam 15:2-3, 18-19) and for consulting a witch (1 Sam 28:8-19). 10:13-14


"When they had left their gods there, David gave a commandment, and they were burned with fire." 14:12


2 Chronicles


Solomon's Egyptian wife can't be around holy places. Is that because she is a woman or because she is an Egyptian, or both? 8:11


Asa destroyed the temples of other gods and forbade their worship. 14:2-5


"Nation was destroyed of nation, and city of city: for God did vex them with all adversity." 15:6


"Asa ... put away the abominable idols out of all the land of Judah." 15:8


"Whosoever would not seek the LORD God of Israel should be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman." 15:13


Executing non-believers brings peace. 15:15


"And also concerning Maachah the mother of Asa the king, he removed her from being queen, because she had made an idol in a grove: and Asa cut down her idol, and stamped it, and burnt it." 15:16


Hate the sinner -- or God will pour his wrath out on you. 19:2


Only Levites can enter "the house of the Lord". "Whosoever else cometh into the house, he shall be put to death." 23:6-7


God told Jehu to kill everyone in the house of Ahab and then later condemned him for it (Hosea 1:4). 22:7-9


The priest (Jehoiada) tells the people to kill Athaliah and her followers. So they find her and kill her. "And all the people of the land rejoiced: and the city was quiet, after that they had slain Athaliah with the sword."