Scripture · New Testament
Galatians 4:8
Galatians 4:8 is verse 8 of Galatians chapter 4, shown here in the Berean Standard Bible.
Berean Standard Bible
Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods.
King James Version
Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods.
World English Bible
However at that time, not knowing God, you were in bondage to those who by nature are not gods.
Read in context
Galatians 4:6–10 · Berean Standard Bible
6 And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!”
7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, you are also an heir through God.
8 Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods.
9 But now that you know God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you are turning back to those weak and worthless principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again?
10 You are observing special days and months and seasons and years!
Read all of Galatians 4Greek words
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Cross-references
The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge lists these related verses. Scripture text comes from the Berean Standard Bible.
Exodus 5:2But Pharaoh replied, “Who is the LORD that I should obey His voice and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD, and I will not let Israel go.”
Jeremiah 10:25Pour out Your wrath on the nations that do not acknowledge You, and on the families that do not call on Your name. For they have devoured Jacob; they have consumed him and finished him off; they have devastated his homeland.
John 1:10He was in the world, and though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognize Him.
Acts 17:23For as I walked around and examined your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore what you worship as something unknown, I now proclaim to you.
Acts 17:30Although God overlooked the ignorance of earlier times, He now commands all people everywhere to repent.
Romans 1:28Furthermore, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, He gave them up to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.
1 Corinthians 1:21For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know Him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.
Ephesians 2:11Therefore remember that formerly you who are Gentiles in the flesh and called uncircumcised by the so-called circumcision (that done in the body by human hands)—
Ephesians 2:12remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.
Ephesians 4:18They are darkened in their understanding and alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardness of their hearts.
1 Thessalonians 4:5not in lustful passion like the Gentiles who do not know God;
2 Thessalonians 1:8in blazing fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
1 John 3:1Behold what manner of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God. And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him.
Joshua 24:2And Joshua said to all the people, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Long ago your fathers, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the Euphrates and worshiped other gods.
Joshua 24:15But if it is unpleasing in your sight to serve the LORD, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living. As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD!”
Psalms 115:4Their idols are silver and gold, made by the hands of men.
Psalms 115:5They have mouths, but cannot speak; they have eyes, but cannot see;
Psalms 115:6they have ears, but cannot hear; they have noses, but cannot smell;
Psalms 115:7they have hands, but cannot feel; they have feet, but cannot walk; they cannot even clear their throats.
Psalms 115:8Those who make them become like them, as do all who trust in them.
Psalms 135:15The idols of the nations are silver and gold, made by the hands of men.
Psalms 135:16They have mouths, but cannot speak; they have eyes, but cannot see;
Psalms 135:17they have ears, but cannot hear; nor is there breath in their mouths.
Psalms 135:18Those who make them become like them, as do all who trust in them.
Isaiah 44:9All makers of idols are nothing, and the things they treasure are worthless. Their witnesses fail to see or comprehend, so they are put to shame.
Isaiah 44:10Who fashions a god or casts an idol which profits him nothing?
Isaiah 44:11Behold, all his companions will be put to shame, for the craftsmen themselves are only human. Let them all assemble and take their stand; they will all be brought to terror and shame.
Isaiah 44:12The blacksmith takes a tool and labors over the coals; he fashions an idol with hammers and forges it with his strong arms. Yet he grows hungry and loses his strength; he fails to drink water and grows faint.
Isaiah 44:13The woodworker extends a measuring line; he marks it out with a stylus; he shapes it with chisels and outlines it with a compass. He fashions it in the likeness of man, like man in all his glory, that it may dwell in a shrine.
Isaiah 44:14He cuts down cedars or retrieves a cypress or oak. He lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a laurel, and the rain makes it grow.
Isaiah 44:15It serves as fuel for man. He takes some of it to warm himself, and he kindles a fire and bakes his bread; he even fashions it into a god and worships it; he makes an idol and bows down to it.
Isaiah 44:16He burns half of it in the fire, and he roasts meat on that half. He eats the roast and is satisfied. Indeed, he warms himself and says, “Ah! I am warm; I see the fire.”
Isaiah 44:17From the rest he makes a god, his graven image. He bows down to it and worships; he prays to it and says, “Save me, for you are my god.”
Isaiah 44:18They do not comprehend or discern, for He has shut their eyes so they cannot see and closed their minds so they cannot understand.
Isaiah 44:19And no one considers in his heart, no one has the knowledge or insight to say, “I burned half of it in the fire, and I baked bread on its coals; I roasted meat and I ate. Shall I make something detestable with the rest of it? Shall I bow down to a block of wood?”
Isaiah 44:20He feeds on ashes. His deluded heart has led him astray, and he cannot deliver himself or say, “Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?”
Jeremiah 10:3For the customs of the peoples are worthless; they cut down a tree from the forest; it is shaped with a chisel by the hands of a craftsman.
Jeremiah 10:4They adorn it with silver and gold and fasten it with hammer and nails, so that it will not totter.
Jeremiah 10:5Like scarecrows in a cucumber patch, their idols cannot speak. They must be carried because they cannot walk. Do not fear them, for they can do no harm, and neither can they do any good.”
Jeremiah 10:6There is none like You, O LORD. You are great, and Your name is mighty in power.
Jeremiah 10:7Who would not fear You, O King of nations? This is Your due. For among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their kingdoms, there is none like You.
Jeremiah 10:8But they are altogether senseless and foolish, instructed by worthless idols made of wood!
Jeremiah 10:9Hammered silver is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz— the work of a craftsman from the hands of a goldsmith. Their clothes are blue and purple, all fashioned by skilled workers.
Jeremiah 10:10But the LORD is the true God; He is the living God and eternal King. The earth quakes at His wrath, and the nations cannot endure His indignation.
Jeremiah 10:11Thus you are to tell them: “These gods, who have made neither the heavens nor the earth, will perish from this earth and from under these heavens.”
Jeremiah 10:12The LORD made the earth by His power; He established the world by His wisdom and stretched out the heavens by His understanding.
Jeremiah 10:13When He thunders, the waters in the heavens roar; He causes the clouds to rise from the ends of the earth. He generates the lightning with the rain and brings forth the wind from His storehouses.
Jeremiah 10:14Every man is senseless and devoid of knowledge; every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols. For his molten images are a fraud, and there is no breath in them.
Jeremiah 10:15They are worthless, a work to be mocked. In the time of their punishment they will perish.
Jeremiah 10:16The Portion of Jacob is not like these, for He is the Maker of all things, and Israel is the tribe of His inheritance— the LORD of Hosts is His name.
Acts 14:12Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they called Hermes, because he was the chief speaker.
Acts 17:29Therefore, being offspring of God, we should not think that the Divine Being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by man’s skill and imagination.
Romans 1:23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images of mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
1 Corinthians 8:4So about eating food sacrificed to idols: We know that an idol is nothing at all in the world, and that there is no God but one.
1 Corinthians 10:19Am I suggesting, then, that food sacrificed to an idol is anything, or that an idol is anything?
1 Corinthians 10:20No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God. And I do not want you to be participants with demons.
1 Corinthians 12:2You know that when you were pagans, you were influenced and led astray to mute idols.
1 Thessalonians 1:9For they themselves report what kind of welcome you gave us, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God
1 Peter 4:3For you have spent enough time in the past carrying out the same desires as the Gentiles: living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing, and detestable idolatry.