Then Elijah approached all the people and said, “How long are you going to struggle with the two choices? If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him.” But the people did not answer him so much as a word.
They feared the Lord, yet they were serving their own gods in accordance with the custom of the nations from among whom they had been taken into exile.
So while these nations feared the Lord, they also served their idols; their children likewise and their grandchildren, just as their fathers did, they do to this day.
Then the Lord said, “Because this people approaches Me with their words And honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far away from Me, And their reverence for Me consists of the commandment of men that is taught;
“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.
as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which there are some things that are hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.