“But you, children of a witch, come here!
    Sons of a slut, daughters of a whore.
What business do you have taunting,
    sneering, and sticking out your tongue?
Do you have any idea what wretches you’ve turned out to be?
    A race of rebels, a generation of liars.
You satisfy your lust any place you find some shade
    and fornicate at whim.
You kill your children at any convenient spot—
    any cave or crevasse will do.
You take stones from the creek
    and set up your sex-and-religion shrines.
You’ve chosen your fate.
    Your worship will be your doom.
You’ve climbed a high mountain
    to practice your foul sex-and-death religion.
Behind closed doors
    you assemble your precious gods and goddesses.
Deserting me, you’ve gone all out, stripped down
    and made your bed your place of worship.
You’ve climbed into bed with the ‘sacred’ whores
    and loved every minute of it,
    adoring every curve of their naked bodies.
You anoint your king-god with ointments
    and lavish perfumes on yourselves.
You send scouts to search out the latest in religion,
    send them all the way to hell and back.
You wear yourselves out trying the new and the different,
    and never see what a waste it all is.
You’ve always found strength for the latest fad,
    never got tired of trying new religions. (The Message).

This theme recurs in the prophetic writings: Israel the serial spiritual adulterer. Her ‘lovers’ are other gods. She goes ‘whoring’ after them, but she ‘can’t get no satisfaction.’

The sexual imagery is doubly powerful because much of pagan religion involved illicit sexual activity in the rites and rituals of worship.

Saint Augustine hit the nail in the head when he said, ‘Thou hast made us for thyself and our hearts find no rest until they rest in thee.’

No man- made god will ever fill the God-shaped hole that lies within each of us.

But the human heart remains an ‘idol-making factory’.