Deuteronomy 7:5

Ver. 5. Destroy their altars—and cut down their groves— See Exodus 34:13. It is well known, that nothing was more common among idolaters, than consecrated trees and groves: to cut down those groves was reckoned a heinous crime; see Lucan's Pharsalia, book 3: ver. 361 of Rowe's translation. Sir Isaac Newton infers from this passage, that the Canaanites had no temples; for that Moses, in commanding the Israelites to destroy their sacred places, makes no mention of temples, as he would have done had there been any in those days. See his Chronol. p. 221.