you shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them, for I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and on the fourth generation of those who hate me,
Not to worship an idol in its customary manner of worship
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
וְלֹא תָעָבְדֵם
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
שהזהירנו מעבוד ע"ז אפילו זולת הארבעה מינין הקדומים, אבל בתנאי שתהיה העבודה כדרכה, רוצה לומר שיעבוד אותה במה שהוא דרך אותו הנעבד שיעבד בו, כמו שיפעור עצמו לפעור או יזרוק אבן למרקוליס. והוא אמרו יתעלה באזהרה מזה לא תעבדם. ולשון מכילתא לא תשתחוה להם ולא תעבדם לחייב על העבודה בפני עצמה, ולכן מי שיזרוק אבן לפעור או יפעור למרקוליס אין זה חייב כי אין זה דרך עבודתה מפני אמרו יתברך איכה יעבדו וגו' והעובר על לאו זה חייב במזיד סקילה וכרת ובשוגג קרבן. וכבר התבארו משפטי מצוה זו במסכת סנהדרין (דף ס"ד:) ושם אמרו שלש כריתות לע"ז אחת כדרכה ואחת שלא כדרכה ואחת למולך, רוצה לומר כי מי שיעבוד אי זה ע"ז שיהיה באחת מן העבודות הנה הוא חייב כרת ובתנאי שיעבוד אותה כדרכה, כלומר בדבר שדרכה שתעבד בו כמו פוער לפעור וזורק אבן למרקוליס ומעביר שערו לכמוש. וכן מי שעבד באחת מארבע עבודות לאיזה נעבד שיהיה מהם הנה הוא חייב כרת ואף על פי שאין דרך עבודתה בכך כמו אילו הקריב לפעור או השתחוה למרקוליס, וזהו שלא כדרכה, והכרת השלישית במי שהעביר מזרעו למולך כמו שאבאר. (וישמע יתרו, מדע הלכות ע"ז וחקות העכו"ם פרק ג'):
That He prohibited us from worshipping an idol, even besides the four ways that preceded; but on condition that the worship be according to its way - meaning to say, that one serves it in the way that this worshipped thing is worshipped, such as to expose oneself to Peor, or to cast a stone at Mercury. And that is His, may He be exalted, saying in prohibition of this, "you shall not worship them" (Exodus 20:5). And the language of the Mekhilta (Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 20:5:1) is, "'You shall not bow to them and you shall not worship them' - to make liable for the worship separately." And hence one who casts a stone at Peor or exposes himself to Mercury is not liable, for it is not its worship - as He, may He be blessed, said, "How do [these nations] serve" (Deuteronomy 12:30). And one who transgresses this negative commandment is liable for stoning or excision when volitional; and a sacrifice when inadvertent. And the regulations of this commandment have already been explained in Tractate Sanhedrin. And there (Sanhedrin 64b), they said, "There are three exicisions for idolatry: One according to its way; one that is not according to its way; and one that is to Molekh." [This] means to say: That one who worships any idol that it may be through one of the ways of worship is surely liable for excision, but on condition that he worships it according to its way, like exposing himself to Peor or casting a stone at Mercury or passing his hair to Khamosh; likewise one who worshipped any worshipped thing that it may be through one of the four ways of worship is liable for excision, even if this is not the way of its worship, such as if one sacrificed to Peor or bowed to Mercury - and that is not according to its way; and the third excision is for one who passes some of his offspring to Molekh, as I will explain (in the next commandment). (See Parashat Yitro; Mishneh Torah, Foreign Worship and Customs of the Nations 3.)
Hebrew: Sefer HaMitzvot, Warsaw 1883 (public domain). English: Sefaria Edition, trans. Rabbi Francis Nataf, 2021 (CC0). Via Sefaria; translator’s footnotes omitted.
Literary form: a prohibition
Applicability
How the catalog describes where and when this commandment applies. These are independent descriptions, not a verdict on which laws still count.
- Recorded as practiced today
Classical halakhic consequences
The consequences the classical halakhah attaches to this commandment, grouped by who imposes them. Where a category has none recorded, that absence is itself meaningful.
Imposed by a court
- Death by stoning (sekilah)
At the hands of Heaven
- Karet — being 'cut off'
Ritual remedy
- A sin-offering (ḥatat)
How the streams of Judaism treat this commandment
The streams of Judaism read the same commandment differently — an ongoing plurality, not a ranking. Each position below is reported as the catalog records it; none is presented as the correct one.
- Orthodox Binding
- Conservative Binding
- Reform Kept as an ethical principle
- Reconstructionist Kept as an ethical principle
- Karaite Binding
24 of 613 commandments have been examined in depth so far — this one is queued.
How later traditions received this commandment
How later traditions read or reworked this commandment, each attributed to its own voice. The catalog’s own classification of each reception is shown as it records it, never adopted as GEBible’s.
Qumran (the Dead Sea Scrolls)
- CD 12:6-11 The catalog describes this reception as: stringent reinterpretation (gentile contact regulation; only adjacent to manner of worship law)
Rabbinic aggadah
- Sifre Deuteronomy 43 expanded it homiletically
- Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, Bachodesh 6 expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- De Decalogo 52-65 rationalized it
- De Specialibus Legibus 1.21-31 rationalized it
Josephus
- Antiquities 3.91 affirmed it
- Against Apion 2.236-237 rationalized it
The New Testament
- 1 Corinthians 10:14-21 affirmed it Paul prohibits participation in pagan sacrificial meals as koinōnia with demons, echoing the concern with deity-specific cultic service
- Acts 15:29 The catalog describes this reception as: partial retention Apostolic decree selectively retains abstention from things sacrificed to idols (eidōlothyta) as binding on gentile believers — a Noahide-style minimal retention rather than full affirmation of the manner-of-worship prohibition
The Church Fathers
- Tertullian, De Idololatria 1-3 read it more strictly
- Augustine, Quaestiones in Exodum (Quaestiones in Heptateuchum, Bk. 2), questions on the Decalogue reinterpreted it
The Qur'an and hadith
- Q 4:36 carried a parallel
- Q 6:74-79 carried a parallel
Beside the older legal codes of its world
The commandment set beside the ancient Near-Eastern legal collections scholars compare it to — a descriptive comparison, not a claim of dependence.
- neo assyrian vassal treaties exclusive loyalty to the suzerain enforced via treaty formulary; only a general structural analogue to exclusive divine service, NOT a parallel to the manner-of-worship (kederekh avodatah) clause specifically Relationship to the parallel: shared formulary lines 266-301 (loyalty stipulations) Parpola & Watanabe, SAA 2 (1988), no. 6
Where this commandment meets modern human-rights frameworks
One modern normative lens, attributed to it — not GEBible’s assessment. Each row names the framework it measures against and the catalog’s own classification of the relation.
This framework catalogues tensions; it records agreement in only one of its entries. The near-total tension rate is the shape of the instrument, not a finding.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
The commandment prescribes capital punishment for engaging in a specific form of worship; modern religious-freedom norms prohibit capital punishment as a sanction for acts of religious devotion, even where the underlying act (child sacrifice) is independently prohibited on other grounds.
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Article 18
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
UDHR Article 18 protects the freedom to manifest religion in practice and worship; while the underlying act prohibited (child sacrifice) conflicts with UDHR Article 3, the prescribed death-by-stoning as a religious sanction is itself incompatible with Article 18's protection against religion-based capital punishment.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as an incompatible method.
Modern penal frameworks require that punishment be imposed through lawful judicial procedure with due process protections; stoning as a method of execution, even for the serious offense of child killing, is an incompatible method under any contemporary penal code.
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Article 6
This framework classifies the relation as a substantive tension.
ICCPR Article 6 protects the right to life and, in abolitionist interpretations, prohibits capital punishment entirely; the death-by-stoning sanction for Molech worship creates tension with Article 6 even where the prohibited act constitutes a serious crime under parallel provisions.
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rabbinic tradition
This framework classifies the relation as abrogated in practice.
Rabbinic tradition holds that capital jurisdiction lapsed with the dissolution of the Sanhedrin; the stoning sanction is de jure but not de facto enforced.