But your prayers go unanswered for these gods can never be touched with the feelings of human need. And though you do all you know how to do, yet you still have no lasting peace or happiness. Your world is meaningless. You are still in your sins. All of your religious activities only serve to remind you of your guilt and sin.
People do the same today.
They try to find relief from the emptiness of life in chasing and embracing shadows, but nothing helps. They spend their lives wrapped in religious practices and traditions that only serve to remind them of how sinful, guilty, awful, and worthless they are. Jesus came to set us free from that. He came to deliver us from false gods so that we might learn to know and serve and love the true and living God. There isn't and never can be any forgiveness or inner freedom from guilt outside of Jesus.