Mixing Messiah with Paganism

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and not intermingle with these nations who are still remaining among you. Do not mention the names of their gods or swear by them or worship them or bow down to them

Instead, you are to deal with them like this: tear down their altars, smash their pillars, cut down their Asherah poles, and burn their carved images with fire. For you are a holy people to Yahweh your God—from all the peoples on the face of the earth, Yahweh your God has chosen you to be His treasured people.

The carved images of their gods you are to burn with fire. You are not to covet the silver or gold on them or take it for yourself—or you could be snared by it, for it is an abomination to Yahweh your God. You are not to bring an abomination into your house—for you, like it, will be a banned thing. You must utterly detest and utterly abhor it, for it is set apart for destruction.

You must utterly destroy all the places where the nations that you will dispossess served their gods—on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. You are to tear down their altars, smash their pillars, burn their Asherah poles in the fire and cut down the carved images of their gods, and you are to obliterate their name from that place.

You will not do all the things as we are doing here today—everyone doing what is right in his own eyes.

be careful not to be trapped into imitating them after they have been destroyed before you. Do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How do these nations serve their gods? I will do the same.’ You are not to act like this toward Yahweh your God! For every abomination of Yahweh, which He hates, they have done to their gods—they even burn their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods.

Suppose a prophet or a dreamer of dreams rises up among you and gives you a sign or wonder, and the sign or wonder he spoke to you comes true, while saying, ‘Let’s follow other gods’—that you have not known, and—‘Let’s serve them!’ You must not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams—for Yahweh your God is testing you, to find out whether you love Yahweh  your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

Suppose your brother—your mother’s son—or your son or daughter, or the wife of your bosom, or your best friend of your own soul misleads you secretly, saying, ‘Let’s go and serve other gods’—that you and your fathers have not known, from among the gods of the peoples around you, near you or far off from you, from one end of the earth to the other. You are not to give in or listen to him, your eye is not to pity him, and you are not to spare or conceal him.

When you enter the land Yahweh your God is giving you, you are not to learn to do the abominations of those nations. There must not be found among you anyone who makes his son or daughter pass through the fire, or a fortune-teller, soothsayer, omen reader, or sorcerer, or one who casts spells, or a medium, a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For whoever does these things is an abomination to Yahweh, and because of these abominations Yahweh your God is driving them out from before you. You are to be blameless before Yahweh your God. “For these nations, which you are about to dispossess, listen to soothsayers and fortune-tellers, but as for you, Yahweh your God will not allow you to do so.

If it seems bad to you to worship Yahweh, then choose for yourselves today whom you will serve—whether the gods that your fathers worshipped that were beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will worship Yahweh!

 You are not to act as they do in the land of Egypt, where you used to live. Nor are you to act as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you, nor are you to walk in their customs. 

Thus says the Lord, “Do not learn the way of the [pagan] nations, And do not be terrified and distressed by the signs of the heavens Although the pagans are terrified by them; For the customs and decrees of the peoples are [mere] delusion [exercises in futility]; It is only wood which one cuts from the forest, The work of the hands of the craftsman with the axe or cutting tool. “They adorn the idol with silver and with gold; They fasten it with hammers and nails so that it will not fall apart.

 1 Corinthians 10:11  

These things happened to them (Israel) as examples for us. They were written down to warn us who live at the end of the age. 

Exodus 32:8 - (when we follow our heart)

They quickly turned aside from the path that I commanded for them. They have made a molten calf, worshipped it, and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘This (calf) is your god, O Israel, that brought you up out of the land of Egypt.’”

Exodus 32:28 - (The result)

The people from the family of Levi obeyed Moses, and that day about three thousand of the Israelites died.

The children of Israel worshipped a golden calf, and they said it was for worshipping their God that delivered them from Egypt. Why was Moses and God so upset if the calf was made to worship God? Didn't God "know their hearts"?

Leviticus 10:1-2

  Now Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu each took his own censer, put fire in it, laid incense over it, and offered unauthorized fire before Yahweh—which He had not commanded them. So fire came out from the presence of Yahweh and consumed them. So they died before Yahweh. 

1 Samuel 13:9-14

So Saul said, “Bring the burnt offering here to me, and the peace offerings.” And he offered the burnt offering. As soon as he had finished offering the burnt offering, behold, Samuel came. And Saul went out to meet him and greet him. Samuel said, “What have you done?” And Saul said, “When I saw that the people were scattering from me, and that you did not come within the days appointed, and that the Philistines had mustered at Michmash, I said, ‘Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the favor of the Lord.’ So I forced myself and offered the burnt offering.” And Samuel said to Saul, “You have done foolishly. You have not kept the command of the Lord your God, with which he commanded you. For then the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be prince over his people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.”

1 Samuel 15:3 - (Gods instructions)

Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’

1 Samuel 15:21-23 - (Saul disobeys)

But the people took some of the spoil, sheep and oxen—the best of what was under the ban of destruction—to sacrifice to Yahweh God in Gilgal.” Samuel said: “Does God delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of God? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, to pay heed than the fat of rams.  For rebellion is like the sin of divination and stubbornness is like iniquity and idolatry.

Since you have rejected God’s word, He has also rejected you as king.”

 Mark 7:6-13 

 And He said to them, “Rightly did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ Having left behind the commandment of God, you hold on to the tradition of men.” Then he said, “You skillfully sidestep God’s law in order to hold on to your own tradition. For instance, Moses gave you this law from God: ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and ‘Anyone who speaks disrespectfully of father or mother must be put to death.’ But you say it is all right for people to say to their parents, ‘Sorry, I can’t help you. For I have vowed to give to God what I would have given to you.’ In this way, you let them disregard their needy parents. And so you cancel the word of God in order to hand down your own tradition. And this is only one example among many others.”