Bible Strands
Joel 3:5
For you took My silver and gold and carried off My finest treasures to your temples.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — God addresses Tyre, Sidon, and the Philistia regions, accusing them of retaliatory theft before pronouncing swift recompense. The words — kaspi (silver/my) and mahamadi (desirable things/my) identify the stolen items as Yahweh’s personal property rather than generic wealth. The thread — The motif of sacred plunder recurs in 2 Kings 24:13 and 2 Kings 12:18, while 2 Chronicles 21:16 shows God using neighboring nations to execute judgment. Why it lands — The text demands recognition that profiting from divine assets incurs immediate liability, requiring the reader to acknowledge that theft against God triggers a measured return.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Because ye have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried into your temples my goodly pleasant things:
Cross-references
- 2 Kings 24:13 As the LORD had declared, Nebuchadnezzar also carried off all the treasures from the house of the LORD and the royal palace, and he cut into pieces all the gold articles that Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of the LORD.
- 2 Chronicles 21:16 Then the LORD stirred against Jehoram the spirit of the Philistines and Arabs who lived near the Cushites.
- 2 Kings 12:18 So King Joash of Judah took all the sacred objects dedicated by his fathers—Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, and Ahaziah, the kings of Judah—along with his own consecrated items and all the gold found in the treasuries of the house of the LORD and the royal palace, and he sent them to Hazael king of Aram. So Hazael withdrew from Jerusalem.
- 2 Kings 16:8 Ahaz also took the silver and gold found in the house of the LORD and in the treasuries of the king’s palace, and he sent it as a gift to the king of Assyria.
- 2 Kings 18:15 Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the LORD and in the treasuries of the royal palace.
- 1 Samuel 5:2 carried it into the temple of Dagon, and set it beside his statue.
- 2 Kings 25:13 Moreover, the Chaldeans broke up the bronze pillars and stands and the bronze Sea in the house of the LORD, and they carried the bronze to Babylon.
- Jeremiah 50:28 Listen to the fugitives and refugees from the land of Babylon, declaring in Zion the vengeance of the LORD our God, the vengeance for His temple.
- Jeremiah 51:11 Sharpen the arrows! Fill the quivers! The LORD has aroused the spirit of the kings of the Medes, because His plan is aimed at Babylon to destroy her, for it is the vengeance of the LORD—vengeance for His temple.
- Daniel 5:2 Under the influence of the wine, Belshazzar gave orders to bring in the gold and silver vessels that Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken from the temple in Jerusalem, so that the king could drink from them, along with his nobles, his wives, and his concubines.