Ezekiel 6:4

"And your altars shall become desolate, and your sun-images shall be broken; and I will cast down your slain men before your idols. And I will lay down the dead bodies of the children of Israel before their idols; and I will scatter your bones round about your altars. In all your dwelling-places, the cities shall be laid waste, and the high places shall be desolate, that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, and your idols may be broken and cease, and your sun-images may be hewn down, and your works may be abolished. And the slain shall fall in the midst of you, and ye shall know that I am Jehovah."

Here is a prophecy of God's total destruction of the system of worship into which apostate Israel had fallen.

"Your slain men before your idols ..." (Ezekiel 6:4). Bruce tells us that the Hebrew word here rendered as idols, "Is a derogatory term frequently found in Ezekiel, meaning something like `dungheaps.'"[6] Feinberg thought that Ezekiel might have coined this word; "He used it 39 times."[7]

"Your sun-images ..." (Ezekiel 6:4). "These were pillars or obelisks connected with the worship of Baal, the sun god, and they were found standing near his altars."[8] Some scholars have identified them as phallic symbols.

"These high places were connected with Canaanite fertility rites, an orgiastic worship embodying drunkenness and cultic prostitution. Associated with such high places were idols, sacred stones, pillars, sacred trees, etc."[9]

The presence of dead bodies and bones around the altars and idols of the high places had two purposes, "(1) It defiled the idols with corpses; and (2) it showed the helplessness of the idols."[10]

"And ye shall know that I am Jehovah ..." (Ezekiel 6:7). This expression is found some sixty times in Ezekiel and was the customary way of concluding an oracle or a section of an oracle throughout the prophecy.[11] One finds it in Exodus 7:5; 14:4,18, again demonstrating the familiarity of Ezekiel with the Book of Moses. "The motive for most of God's actions was to bring about the acknowledgment by the nations of his sole power and deity."[12]