²⁴ Do not bow in worship to their gods, and do not serve them. Do not imitate their practices. Instead, demolish them^[a] and smash their sacred pillars to pieces.^(A)

Occult Practices versus Prophetic Revelation

⁹ ‘When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not imitate the detestable customs of those nations.^(A)

³ but walked in the ways of the kings of Israel.^(A) He even sacrificed his son in the fire,^[a] imitating the detestable practices of the nations the Lord had dispossessed before the Israelites.^(B)

¹⁵ They rejected his statutes and his covenant he had made with their ancestors^(A) and the warnings he had given them. They followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves,^(B) following the surrounding nations the Lord had commanded them not to imitate.^(C)

² He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight,^(A) imitating the detestable practices of the nations that the Lord had dispossessed before the Israelites.^(B)

¹¹ Dear friend, do not imitate what is evil,^(A) but what is good. The one who does good is of God;^(B) the one who does evil has not seen God.^(C)