Midrash su Deuteronomio 12:2

6) Similarly: (Devarim 12:2-3) "Destroy shall you destroy all the places … and you shall throw down their altars, etc." Now if of the places and the tree (used for idolatry), which cannot see and cannot hear and cannot speak, because they led to a man's undoing, Scripture writes "Destroy!" "Burn!" "Raze!" and "Remove (them) from the world!" then a man who leads his fellow to veer from the path of life to the path of death — how much more so should the Holy One remove him from the world! What is written of the righteous? (Devarim 20:19) "If you besiege a city many days to war upon it, to capture it, do not destroy its tree by lifting an axe against it, for from it shall you eat, but it shall you not cut down": Now does this not follow a fortiori: If trees, which do not see, and which do not hear, and which do not speak — because they grow fruits, the Holy One pitied them, not to remove them from the world, then a man who "grows" Torah and does the will of his Father in heaven — how much more so will the Holy One pity him against removing him from the world!

"only to the L rd alone": Because others say: If the Israelites had not joined the name of the Holy One Blessed be He, with that of idolatry (i.e., the golden calf), they would have gone lost from the world, it is written "One who sacrifices to idolatry shall be put to death — only to the L rd alone!" R. Shimon b. Yochai says: Are not all who join the name of the Holy One Blessed be He to the name of idolatry liable to destruction! As it is written (II Kings 17:33) "They feared the L rd and served their (the nations') gods, according to the custom of the nations that exiled them from there." Others say: Torah was given with its signs (i.e., with its warnings), so that Israel not say: Though we are commanded against idolatry, it will not be held against us if we secrete the idols in the recesses of the earth. It is, therefore, written (Isaiah 2:14) "On all the high mountains and on all the lofty hills" (and in the recesses of the earth) — whether revealed or hidden, (idolatry is forbidden) — "only to the L rd alone" (with no admixtures of idolatry)!

(Devarim 12:2) Whence is it derived that if an asheirah (a tree devoted to idolatry) were cut down and grew again it must be cut down again — even ten times? From "Destroy shall you destroy."