FROM THIS WEEK’S TORAH PORTION – MASEY:

YHWH commands that when the people of Yisrael come into the land of promise, into His kingdom, they are to drive out all the former inhabitants and destroy every remaining vestige of their false religions. Spiritually, we are also to do the same thing when we come to faith in Yehoshua and join with Him and His people Yisrael. We are to follow Him, and live our lives in purity, and fellowship with those of His community. We are not to remain entangled in the ways of the world around us or its people. YHWH says,

“Speak to the children of Yisra’el, and say to them, ‘When you have passed over the Yarden into the land of Kena’an, then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and shall destroy all their engraved stones, and shall destroy all their molded images, and lay waste all their high places, and you shall possess the land and dwell in it, for I have given you the land to possess. And you shall divide the land by lot as an inheritance among your clans. To the larger you give a larger inheritance, and to the smaller you give a smaller inheritance. Wherever the lot falls to anyone, that is his. You inherit according to the tribes of your fathers. And if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then it shall be that those whom you let remain shall be pricks in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall trouble you in the land where you dwell. And it shall be that I do to you as I thought to do to them.’”

With an unimpaired vision, this should not be so hard to see – that the people of YHWH cannot hold onto the ways of the world or any other form of religion but His. I guess it is hard to see clearly with thorns in your eyes.