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Read the Bible

American Standard Version

Romans 11:3

Lord, they have killed thy prophets, they have digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Martyrdom;   Quotations and Allusions;   Salvation;   The Topic Concordance - Forsaking;   Gentiles/heathen;   Israel/jews;   Partaking;   Predestination;   Salvation;   Stumbling/slipping;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Church of Israel;  

Dictionaries:

- Bridgeway Bible Dictionary - Church;   Elijah;   Remnant;   Baker Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology - Elijah;   Person, Personhood;   Charles Buck Theological Dictionary - Calvinists;   Incomprehensibility of God;   Jews;   Merit;   Omniscience of God;   Easton Bible Dictionary - Serpent;   Fausset Bible Dictionary - Kings, the Books of;   Prophet;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Altar;   Elijah;   Romans, Book of;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Paul the Apostle;   Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament - Altar;   Elijah ;   Quotations;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Elijah;  

Devotionals:

- Every Day Light - Devotion for February 16;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars. I am the only one left, and they are trying to take my life!
King James Version (1611)
Lord, they haue killed thy Prophets, and digged downe thine Altars, and I am left alone, and they seeke my life.
King James Version
Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life.
English Standard Version
"Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life."
New American Standard Bible
"Lord, THEY HAVE KILLED YOUR PROPHETS, THEY HAVE TORN DOWN YOUR ALTARS, AND I ALONE AM LEFT, AND THEY ARE SEEKING MY LIFE."
New Century Version
"Lord," he said, "they have killed your prophets, and they have destroyed your altars. I am the only prophet left, and now they are trying to kill me, too."
Amplified Bible
"Lord, THEY HAVE KILLED YOUR PROPHETS, THEY HAVE TORN DOWN YOUR ALTARS, AND I ALONE AM LEFT [of the prophets], AND THEY ARE SEEKING MY LIFE."
New American Standard Bible (1995)
"Lord, THEY HAVE KILLED YOUR PROPHETS, THEY HAVE TORN DOWN YOUR ALTARS, AND I ALONE AM LEFT, AND THEY ARE SEEKING MY LIFE."
Legacy Standard Bible
"Lord, they have killed Your prophets, they have torn down Your altars, and I alone am left, and they are seeking my life."
Berean Standard Bible
"Lord, they have killed Your prophets and torn down Your altars. I am the only one left, and they are seeking my life as well"?
Contemporary English Version
He said, "Lord, they killed your prophets and destroyed your altars. I am the only one left, and now they want to kill me."
Complete Jewish Bible
" Adonai , they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars, and I'm the only one left, and now they want to kill me too!"
Darby Translation
Lord, they have killed thy prophets, they have dug down thine altars; and *I* have been left alone, and they seek my life.
Easy-to-Read Version
"Lord, they have killed your prophets and destroyed your altars. I am the only prophet still living, and they are trying to kill me now."
Geneva Bible (1587)
Lord, they haue killed thy Prophets, and digged downe thine altars: and I am left alone, and they seeke my life?
George Lamsa Translation
My LORD, they have killed your prophets and have demolished your altars; and I am left alone; and they seek my life.
Good News Translation
"Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars; I am the only one left, and they are trying to kill me."
Lexham English Bible
"Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have torn down your altars, and I alone am left, and they are seeking my life!"
Literal Translation
Lord, "they killed Your prophets," "and they dug down Your altars," "and only I am left, and they seek my life." 1 Kg. 19:10
Bible in Basic English
Lord, they have put your prophets to death, and made waste your altars, and now I am the last, and they are searching for me to take away my life.
Hebrew Names Version
"Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have broken down your altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life."
International Standard Version
"Lord, they have killed your prophets and demolished your altars. I am the only one left, and they are trying to take my life."1 Kings 19:10,14">[fn]1 Kings 19:10,14;">[xr]
Etheridge Translation
when he cried unto Aloha against Israel, saying, My Lord, thy prophets have they killed, and thy altars overthrown, and I alone am left, and they seek my soul ?
Murdock Translation
My Lord, they have slain thy prophets, and have thrown down thy altars; and I am left alone; and they seek my life.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
Saying: Lord, they haue kylled thy prophetes, and dygged downe thyne aulters: and I am left alone, and they seke my lyfe.
English Revised Version
Lord, they have killed thy prophets, they have digged down thine altars: and I am left alone, and they seek my life.
World English Bible
"Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have broken down your altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life."
Wesley's New Testament (1755)
Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thy altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life.
Weymouth's New Testament
"Lord, they have put Thy Prophets to death, and have overthrown Thy altars; and, now that I alone remain, they are thirsting for my blood"?
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Lord, thei han slayn thi prophetis, thei han vndurdoluun thin auteris, and Y am lefte aloone, and thei seken my lijf.
Update Bible Version
Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have dug down your altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life.
Webster's Bible Translation
Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thy altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life.
New English Translation
"Lord, they have killed your prophets , they have demolished your altars; I alone am left and they are seeking my life! "
New King James Version
"Lord, they have killed Your prophets and torn down Your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life"? 1 Kings 19:10, 14">[fn]
New Living Translation
" Lord , they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me, too."
New Life Bible
He said, "Lord, they have killed Your early preachers. They have destroyed the places where You are worshiped. I am the only one left. They are trying to kill me."
New Revised Standard
"Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars; I alone am left, and they are seeking my life."
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Lord! Thy prophets, have they slain, thine altars, have they overthrown, and, I, am left alone, and they are seeking my life!
Douay-Rheims Bible
Lord, they have slain thy prophets, they have dug down thy altars. And I am left alone: and they seek my life.
Revised Standard Version
"Lord, they have killed thy prophets, they have demolished thy altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life."
Tyndale New Testament (1525)
Lorde they have kylled thy prophetes and dygged doune thyn alters: and I am lefte only and they seke my lyfe.
Young's Literal Translation
`Lord, Thy prophets they did kill, and Thy altars they dug down, and I was left alone, and they seek my life;'
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
LORDE, they haue slayne thy prophetes, & dydged downe thine altares, and I am lefte ouer onely, and they seke my life?
Mace New Testament (1729)
in these words, "Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars; and I alone am left, and they seek my life also."
THE MESSAGE
There was a time not so long ago when you were on the outs with God. But then the Jews slammed the door on him and things opened up for you. Now they are on the outs. But with the door held wide open for you, they have a way back in. In one way or another, God makes sure that we all experience what it means to be outside so that he can personally open the door and welcome us back in. Have you ever come on anything quite like this extravagant generosity of God, this deep, deep wisdom? It's way over our heads. We'll never figure it out. Is there anyone around who can explain God? Anyone smart enough to tell him what to do? Anyone who has done him such a huge favor that God has to ask his advice? Everything comes from him; Everything happens through him; Everything ends up in him. Always glory! Always praise! Yes. Yes. Yes.
Simplified Cowboy Version
"Lord, they've ambushed and killed all of your true followers and torn down your special places. I'm all that's left and I'm being hunted like wolves after a rabbit."

Contextual Overview

1 I say then, Did God cast off his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. 2 God did not cast off his people which he foreknew. Or know ye not what the scripture saith of Elijah? how he pleadeth with God against Israel: 3 Lord, they have killed thy prophets, they have digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life. 4 But what saith the answer of God unto him? I have left for myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to Baal. 5 Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. 6 But if it is by grace, it is no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. 7 What then? That which Israel seeketh for, that he obtained not; but the election obtained it, and the rest were hardened: 8 according as it is written, God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear, unto this very day. 9 And David saith, Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, And a stumblingblock, and a recompense unto them: 10 Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, And bow thou down their back always.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Lord: 1 Kings 18:4, 1 Kings 18:13, 1 Kings 19:10-18, Nehemiah 9:26, Jeremiah 2:30

digged: 1 Kings 18:30, 1 Kings 18:31

Reciprocal: 1 Kings 18:22 - I only

Cross-References

Genesis 11:4
And they said, Come, let us build us a city, and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven, and let us make us a name; lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
Genesis 11:6
And Jehovah said, Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is what they begin to do: and now nothing will be withholden from them, which they purpose to do.
Genesis 11:7
Come, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.
Genesis 11:18
And Peleg lived thirty years, and begat Reu:
Genesis 14:10
Now the vale of Siddim was full of slime pits; and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and they fell there, and they that remained fled to the mountain.
Exodus 1:14
and they made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field, all their service, wherein they made them serve with rigor.
Exodus 2:3
And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch; and she put the child therein, and laid it in the flags by the river's brink.
2 Samuel 12:31
And he brought forth the people that were therein, and put them under saws, and under harrows of iron, and under axes of iron, and made them pass through the brickkiln: and thus did he unto all the cities of the children of Ammon. And David and all the people returned unto Jerusalem.
Psalms 64:5
They encourage themselves in an evil purpose; They commune of laying snares privily; They say, Who will see them?
Proverbs 1:11
If they say, Come with us, Let us lay wait for blood; Let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause;

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Lord, they have killed thy prophets,.... By the order of Jezebel, wife of Ahab king of Israel, 1 Kings 18:4. This sin of slaying the prophets of the Lord is charged upon the Jews by Christ,

Matthew 23:31, and by the apostle, 1 Thessalonians 2:15. In the text in

1 Kings 19:14, it is added, "with the sword": which expresses the manner of death they were put to; and this clause is there put after the following, according to a rule of transposition among the Jews;

1 Kings 19:14- :.

And digged down thine altars; either the altars which the patriarchs had formerly built, and were still in being; and though not used, yet were kept and had in great veneration; wherefore the pulling of them down was done in contempt of them, and of the worship of God, which had been formerly performed there; or else such altars, which the religious among the ten tribes built, since the times of Jeroboam, who forbad them to go up to Jerusalem, but ordered them to go to Dan or Bethel; which they not choosing to do erected altars in different places for divine service, and which the Jews r say were allowed; for from that time, the prohibition of altars at other places than at Jerusalem ceased:

and I am left alone: meaning either as a prophet, not knowing that Obadiah had hid an hundred prophets by fifty in a cave, 1 Kings 18:4; or else as a worshipper of the true God, imagining that he was the only person in Israel, that had a true zeal for the Lord of hosts:

and they seek my life; lay in wait for it, Jezebel by her emissaries being in quest of him; it is added in 1 Kings 19:14, "to take it away"; for she had swore by her gods, that by the morrow about that time, his life should be as the life of one of the prophets of Baal he had slain; and in one copy it is added here.

r Kimchi in 1 Kings xviii. 30.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Lord, they have killed ... - This is taken from 1 Kings 19:10. The quotation is not literally made, but the sense is preserved. This was a charge which Elijah brought against the whole nation; and the act of killing the prophets he regarded as expressive of the character of the people, or that they were universally given to wickedness. The fact was true that they had killed the prophets, etc.; 1 Kings 18:4, 1 Kings 18:13; but the inference which Elijah seems to have drawn from it, that there were no pious people in the nation, was not well founded.

And digged down - Altars, by the Law of Moses, were required to be made of earth or unhewn stones; Exodus 20:24-25. Hence, the expression to dig them down means completely to demolish or destroy them.

Thine altars - There was one great altar in the front of the tabernacle and the temple, on which the daily sacrifices of the Jews were to be made. But they were not forbidden to make altars also elsewhere; Exodus 20:25. And hence they are mentioned as existing in other places; 1Sa 7:17; 1 Samuel 16:2-3; 1 Kings 18:30, 1 Kings 18:32. These were the altars of which Elijah complained as having been thrown down by the Jews; an act which was regarded as expressive of signal impiety.

I am left alone - I am the only prophet which is left alive. We are told that when Jezebel cut off the prophets of the Lord, Obadiah took a hundred of them and hid them in a cave; 1 Kings 18:4. But it is not improbable that they had been discovered and put to death by Ahab. The account which Obadiah gave Elijah when he met him 1 Kings 18:13 seems to favor such a supposition.

Seek my life - That is, Ahab and Jezebel seek to kill me. This they did because he had overcome and slain the prophets of Baal; 1 Kings 19:1-2. There could scarcely be conceived a time of greater distress and declension in religion than this. It has not often happened that so many things that were disheartening have occurred to the church at the same period of time. The prophets of God were slain; but one lonely man appeared to have zeal for true religion; the nation was running to idolatry; the civil rulers were criminally wicked, and were the leaders in the universal apostasy; and all the influences of wealth and power were setting in against the true religion to destroy it. It was natural that the solitary man of God should feel disheartened and lonely in this universal guilt; and should realize that he had no power to resist this tide of crime and calamities.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Romans 11:3. Lord, they have killed thy prophets — They will not permit any person to speak unto them in thy name; and they murder those who are faithful to the commission which they have received from thee.

Digged down thine altars — They are profligate and profane beyond example, and retain not the slightest form of religion.

I am left alone — There is no prophet besides myself left, and they seek to destroy me.


 
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