‘Now then, listen, you lover of pleasure,
    lounging in your security
and saying to yourself,
    “I am, and there is none besides me.
I will never be a widow
    or suffer the loss of children.”
9 Both of these will overtake you
    in a moment, on a single day:
    loss of children and widowhood.
They will come upon you in full measure,
    in spite of your many sorceries
    and all your potent spells.
10 You have trusted in your wickedness
    and have said, “No one sees me.”
Your wisdom and knowledge mislead you
    when you say to yourself,
    “I am, and there is none besides me.”
11 Disaster will come upon you,
    and you will not know how to conjure it away.
A calamity will fall upon you
    that you cannot ward off with a ransom;
a catastrophe you cannot foresee
    will suddenly come upon you.

12 ‘Keep on, then, with your magic spells
    and with your many sorceries,
    which you have laboured at since childhood.
Perhaps you will succeed,
    perhaps you will cause terror.
13 All the counsel you have received has only worn you out!
    Let your astrologers come forward,
those stargazers who make predictions month by month,
    let them save you from what is coming upon you.
14 Surely they are like stubble;
    the fire will burn them up.
They cannot even save themselves
    from the power of the flame.
These are not coals for warmth;
    this is not a fire to sit by.
15 That is all they are to you –
    these you have dealt with
    and laboured with since childhood.
All of them go on in their error;
    there is not one that can save you.

As you read through this passage, you will see that the Babylonians had a religion (astrology) that gave them a sense of power over their own destiny, but without making any moral demands on them. However, there was no salvation in it. See the awful last sentence in v. 15b.

Still today, many people seek warmth at the fireside of occultism (14b). It has a certain fascination; it offers supernatural powers and experiences; but basically it allows you to live your own life. (Some people even try to find ways to make it fit with Christianity! They are tragically mistaken). It needs to be clearly understood that ”this is not a fire to sit by.” It’s not a fire that will warm you up, but one that will eat you up, along with the proponents of such false religion (14a); it is a fire which devours.

It is so important to heed the warning. Elsewhere, the Bible expressly forbids all forms of occult practice. If you’re caught in it, decide to get out. Reach out to Jesus to save you. He can, and He will, but there is no rescue or hope in false religion.