(6) May be abolished.--The word abolished is a strong one, meaning utterly obliterated, wiped out. This was what Israel should have done to the nations who inhabited Canaan before them; they and their works should have been so utterly blotted out that no temptations from them should have remained. But Israel had failed to observe the Divine command, and now in turn their works, done in imitation of the guilty nations they had supplanted, must be blotted out.

6:1-7. War desolates persons, places, and things esteemed most sacred. God ruins idolatries even by the hands of idolaters. It is just with God to make that a desolation, which we make an idol. The superstitions to which many trust for safety, often cause their ruin. And the day is at hand, when idols and idolatry will be as thoroughly destroyed from the professedly Christian church as they were from among the Jews.In all your dwelling places your cities shall be laid waste,.... Which denotes that the desolation should be general, wherever they had cities and places to dwell in; the idolatry being universal, as is said in Jeremiah 2:28;

and the high places shall be desolate; meaning such as were in cities; as, before, such as were built upon mountains and hills; see 2 Kings 23:5;

that your altars may be laid waste and desolate; as they must be, the cities being destroyed in which they were set up:

and your idols may be broken and cease, and your images may be cut down; such as were made of gold and silver, or of wood and stone; the same words are used for them as in Ezekiel 6:4;

and your works may be abolished; not only the works of their hands, but of their brain; whatever they had devised, and was contrary to the pure word and worship of God.