Lectionary Calendar
Thursday, July 17th, 2025
the Week of Proper 10 / Ordinary 15
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Read the Bible

Literal Standard Version

Romans 11:3

"LORD, they killed Your prophets, and they dug down Your altars, and I was 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
American Standard Version
Lord, they have killed thy prophets, they have digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life.
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

1I say then, did God cast away His people? Let it not be! For I am also an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin: 2God did not cast away His people whom He knew before; have you not known—in Elijah—what the Writing says? How he pleads with God concerning Israel, saying, 3"LORD, they killed Your prophets, and they dug down Your altars, and I was left alone, and they seek my life";4but what does the divine answer say to him? "I left to Myself seven thousand men who did not bow a knee to Ba‘al." 5So then also in the present time there has been a remnant according to the [divine] selection of grace; 6and if by grace, no longer of works, otherwise grace becomes no longer grace; and if of works, it is no longer grace, otherwise work is no longer work. 7What then? What Israel seeks after, this it did not obtain, and the chosen obtained, and the rest were hardened, 8according as it has been written: "God gave to them a spirit of deep sleep, eyes not to see, and ears not to hear, to this very day," 9and David says, "Let their table become for a snare, and for a trap, and for a stumbling-block, and for a repayment to them; 10let their eyes be darkened—not to behold, and You always bow down their back."

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 say, "Give help, let us build for ourselves a city and tower with its head in the heavens, and make for ourselves a name, lest we be scattered over the face of all the earth."
Genesis 11:6
and YHWH says, "Behold, the people [is] one, and one language [is] to them all, and this it has dreamed of doing; and now, nothing is restrained from them of that which they have purposed to do.
Genesis 11:7
Give help, let us go down there and confuse their language, so that a man will not understand the language of his companion."
Genesis 11:18
And Peleg lives thirty years [[or one hundred and thirty years]], and begets Reu.
Genesis 14:10
And the Valley of Siddim [is] full of bitumen-pits; and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah flee, and fall there, and those left have fled to the mountain.
Exodus 1:14
and make their lives bitter in hard service, in clay, and in brick, and in every [kind] of service in the field; all their service in which they have served [is] with rigor.
Exodus 2:3
and she has not been able to hide him anymore, and she takes an ark of rushes for him, and covers it with bitumen and with pitch, and puts the boy in it, and puts [it] in the weeds by the edge of the River;
2 Samuel 12:31
and he has brought out the people who [are] in it, and sets [them] to the saw, and to cutting instruments of iron, and to axes of iron, and has caused them to pass over into the brick-kiln; and so he does to all the cities of the sons of Ammon; and David turns back, and all the people, to Jerusalem.
Psalms 64:5
They strengthen an evil thing for themselves, || They recount of the hiding of snares, || They have said, "Who looks at it?"
Proverbs 1:11
If they say, "Come with us, we lay wait for blood, || We watch secretly 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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