“But you—come here, you witches’ children, you offspring of adulterers and prostitutes! Whom do you mock, making faces and sticking out your tongues? You children of sinners and liars! You worship your idols with great passion beneath the oaks and under every green tree. You sacrifice your children down in the valleys, among the jagged rocks in the cliffs. Isaiah 57:3‭-‬5

Isaiah is describing the many forms of idolatry and the type of worship each God required. As the Israelites moved into the Promised Land they were to remove every idol and every form of false worship. God strongly warned them not to intermarry with the local tribes. This is not because God is against mixing ethnicities, it is so the Israelites would not be tempted to embrace the gods of the people they married. This again and again was Israel’s downfall.

Our God is the One True God and He is jealous for an exclusive relationship with us. When we dabble with horoscopes and psychics and other means of tapping into the supernatural realm we are connecting with real spiritual beings. That is hard for us to embrace in our modern world but these entities still exist and seek to draw us away from God.

The people described here are children of people who dabbled in false religions and then allowed themselves to be drawn away from God. Isaiah uses the strongest language to expose what they excuse as, “Both big deal”. To God spiritual adultery is just as real as physical adultery is to a marriage. Every generation draws their family closer to God or toward pagan gods and practices. It might be dressed up in a modern form but it is the same god wanting to steal us and our children and grandchildren away from following Jesus.

I love that God is jealous for me, and I want to be exclusively for Him and boy allow any other gods get in the way of my worship.