The Bible utterly condemns all idol-worship. The people of Israel from their neighbors were constantly learning of idols and were frequently led away from the worship of Jehovah to that of false gods. It will be profitable for us just here to turn aside and consider these gods. The people of Israel were descended from an idolatrous race. Joshua wrote (Chap. xxiv., 2), “Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood” (that is, the River Euphrates,) “and they served other gods.” Rachel, when she left her father’s home with Jacob, stole her father’s “teraphim.” These were images connected with magical rites and they were consulted as oracles in later days. Laban says: “I have augured, or foretold by observing signs.” The teraphim were used in Israel even in Ezekiel’s time. Laban calls his teraphim his _gods_. They were generally images with a man’s head and with bodies of various shapes, though they were quite small, being often only about two or three inches high. THE PLAGUES AND EGYPTIAN IDOLATRY. The people of Israel strangely sought to blend the worship of the true God and of idols, they “feared Jehovah and served strange gods.” They worshiped in turn very nearly all the gods of the Canaanites, Syrians, Assyrians and many of those of the Egyptians. They were accustomed to wear amulets and charms, which were supposed to place them under the protection of the idol gods. (See Genesis xxxv., 4.) In Egypt the people of Israel were more thoroughly tainted with false gods, and it was a long while before they were cleansed of the taint. To the gods of Egypt Moses flung down the gauntlet of defiance. He dared their wrath and defied their anger. In the punishments which God sent upon Pharaoh and his people for their refusal to let the children of Israel go, the plagues of Egypt, as we call them, smote their most sacred symbols. At the command of Moses, Aaron waved his rod over the Nile and its waters were turned to blood and its fishes died. The Nile was an object of worship to the Egyptians, as were the crocodiles and some of the fish living in its waters. The frogs, in the next plague, were among the sacred animals. It was a part of the Egyptian religion that the people and especially the priests, should keep themselves scrupulously clean, and the plague of the lice was a terrible punishment. The great Egyptian beetle, the scarabæus, was sculptured on all their monuments and was an object of worship. The plague of flies or beetles was another attack upon their religion. Selected animals among the cattle were worshiped. The murrain of beasts fell upon them, their being gods as the Egyptians believed them to be, could not avert the plague. The plague of boils and blains was another assault upon the purity of their persons required by their religion. The other plagues showed most effectually the utter inability of the Egyptian gods to help their worshipers, and that Jehovah, the God of Israel, was the one Supreme Being.