CHAPTER 7 FALSE PROPHETS AND IDOLS

Ask God alone about your future
The paths of the Lord are true and right

Ask God alone about your future
ISAIAH 2:22
(adapted)
I don’t ever put my trust in puny (frail, weak) man, frail as his breath!
ISAIAH 2:6
(adapted)
I don’t welcome and receive foreigners (from the East) who practice magic and communicate with evil spirits.
JEREMIAH 27:9
Don’t listen to your false prophets, fortune-tellers, dreamers, mediums and magicians.
ZECHARIAH 10:2
Fortune-tellers’ predictions are all a bunch of silly lies: what comfort is there in promises that don’t come true?
ISAIAH 8:19-20
(adapted)
I am not trying to find out the future by consulting witches and mediums. I don’t listen to their whisperings and mutterings. The living can’t find out the future from the dead. I ask God alone about my future. I check the words of witches against the Word of God! If their messages are different from the Lord’s, it is because he has not sent them; for they have no light or truth in them.
JEREMIAH 10:2-5
(adapted)
I don’t act like the people who make horoscopes and try to read their fate and future in the stars! I am not frightened by predictions such as theirs, for it is all a pack of lies. Their ways are futile and foolish. They cut down a tree and carve an idol, and decorate it with gold and silver and fasten it securely in place with hammer and nails, so that it won’t fall over, and there stands their god like a helpless scare-crow in a garden! It cannot speak, and it must be carried, for it cannot walk. I am not afraid of such a god for it can neither harm nor help, nor do any good.

The paths of the Lord are true and right
HOSEA 7:8
(adapted)
I don’t mingle with the heathen (the ungodly) and I don’t pick up their evil (disobedient) ways and I don’t become as good-for-nothing as a half-baked cake.
HOSEA 7:9
(adapted)
I don’t worship foreign gods. My strength therefore has not been sapped.
JONAH 2:8
Those who worship false gods have turned their backs on all the mercies waiting for them from the Lord.
JEREMIAH 10:16
But the God of Jacob is not like these foolish idols. He is the Creator of all, and Israel is his chosen nation. The Lord of Hosts (God as Lord over earthly or heavenly armies) is his name.
HOSEA 8:6
An idol! It is not God! Therefore, it must be smashed to bits.
JEREMIAH 22:9
…the people living here forgot the Lord their God and violated his agreement with them, for they worshipped idols.
HOSEA 4:7
(adapted)
I have not exchanged the glory (and honor) of God for the disgrace of idols.
HOSEA 8:4
(adapted)
I have not cut myself off from God’s help by worshipping idols made from silver and gold.
HOSEA 12:11
(adapted)
I am not a fool who worships idols.
EZEKIEL 16:49-50
(adapted)
Sodom’s sins were pride and laziness and too much food, while the poor and needy suffered outside her door. Sodom insolently worshipped many idols as the Lord God watched. Therefore he crushed her.
HOSEA 14:8-9
(adapted)
I stay away from idols! God is living and strong! God looks after me and cares for me. God is like an evergreen tree, yielding his fruit to me throughout the year. God’s mercies never fail. I am wise and understand these things. I am intelligent and I listen. For the paths of the Lord are true and right, and good men (and women) walk along them. But sinners (who disobey God) trying it (that is, the path of the Lord) will fail.
HOSEA 4:11-12
(adapted)
I have not turned to wine, women and song and have not been robbed of my brains (my senses). I don’t ask a piece of wood (an idol) to tell me what to do. I don’t believe that “Divine Truth” comes to me through tea leaves! I don’t long after idols and therefore I haven’t become foolish. I haven’t played the harlot (the prostitute) by serving other gods. I have not deserted God, but hold fast to him.