What a very awful scripture is contained in these verses! Observe how the sinner is described: he turns away from GOD: he grows confident in sin: he bids defiance to danger: and is ripe for ruin. Observe the awfulness of the divine judgments upon him. As he turns from the LORD, and doth not like to retain GOD in his knowledge, GOD gives him up to a reprobate mind, to work all uncleanness with greediness. Romans 1:28. Reader! if the LORD gives up the sinner it is all over. "Let Ephraim alone, he is joined to his idols, " is one of the most awful sentences in scripture. If GOD ceases to correct, depend upon it judgment is at hand. Hosea 4:17; Ezekiel 16:42.
Deuteronomy 29:16-21
16 (For ye know how we have dwelt in the land of Egypt; and how we came through the nations which ye passed by;
17 And ye have seen their abominations, and their idols,b wood and stone, silver and gold, which were among them:)
18 Lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from the LORD our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations; lest there should be among you a root that beareth gallc and wormwood;
19 And it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imaginationd of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst:
20 The LORD will not spare him, but then the anger of the LORD and his jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the LORD shall blot out his name from under heaven.
21 And the LORD shall separate him unto evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant that are written in this book of the law: