And have cast their gods into the fire: for they were no gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone: therefore they have destroyed them.
Cast their gods into the fire. The policy of the Assyrians, in order to alienate the conquered peoples from their own countries, was both to deport them elsewhere and to destroy the tutelary idols of their nation, the strongest tie which bound them to their native land. The Roman policy was just the reverse: they admitted all the gods of the conquered countries into the Roman Pantheon.