Deuteronomy 16:21
You shall not plant a sacred grove, nor shall you plant any tree near the altar of the Lord your God;
Catholic Public Domain Version
In The King James Version
In Context
22you shall neither make nor set up for yourself a statue. These things the Lord your God hates.”
Cross References
Deuteronomy 7:5So instead, you shall do this to them: overturn their altars, and break their statues, and cut down their sacred groves, and burn up their graven images.
1 Kings 14:15And the Lord God shall strike Israel, just as a reed is usually shaken in the water. And he will uproot Israel from this good land, which he gave to their fathers. And he will winnow them beyond the river. For they have made for themselves sacred groves, so that they have provoked the Lord.
2 Kings 17:16And they abandoned all the precepts of the Lord, their God. And they made for themselves two molten calves and sacred groves. And they adored the entire celestial army. And they served Baal.
2 Kings 21:7Also, he set up an idol, of the sacred grove that he had made, in the temple of the Lord, about which the Lord said to David, and to his son Solomon: “In this temple, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will place my name forever.
Matthew Henry on Deuteronomy 16:19-22
18 Judges and officers shalt thou make thee in all thy gates, which the Lord thy God giveth thee, throughout thy tribes: and they shall judge the people with just judgment. 19 Thou shalt not wrest judgment; thou shalt not respect persons, neither take a gift: for a gift doth blind the eyes of the wise, and pervert the words of the righteous. 20 That which is altogether just shalt thou follow, that thou mayest live, and inherit the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. 21 Thou shalt not plant thee a grove of any… Read the whole commentary →