My people consult with their wooded idol, And answer to a stick of wood. Indeed the spirit of prostitution has led them astray, And they have been unfaithful to their God.
How blind to the loving providence of God are those who could seriously resort to such pagan devices as those mentioned here.  The immoralities of their idolatrous worship had closed the windows of their minds, and they groped in darkness.  Significantly, it was "the spirit of whoredom" that had caused them to err.  This "spirit" pictures "the wildest possible indulgence of passions ... they are actuated by an impulse that leads to harlotry."[32]  It is not the mere physical result of this behavior, however, which is stressed here.  The root cause of all their wickedness lay in the fact of their "departing from their God."