Hosea 4:15-20. God admonishes Israel for playing the harlot. He tells them not to go into Judah and corrupt them also. He says they are like a stubborn heifer, so He will not feed them like a lamb in a broad pasture. Then He warns others - "Ephraim is joined to idols, let him alone." They are like a band of drunkards, giving themselves over to harlotry and loving shame more than their glory. "A wind has wrapped them in its wings, and they shall be ashamed because of their altars."

Sometimes there is just nothing God can do for us, we simply will not listen and we choose our sin over our glory over and over again. In those times, He just has to leave us alone and keep us from corrupting others as best He can. So he warns Israel to stay out of Judah and warns others to stay away from them. We have to do this with others sometimes, too. Friends and family can become wrapped up in an ill wind and can be not only hurtful to us in their behavior, but bad for us, leading us astray. If we continue with them, we risk falling into their thought patterns and their idolatry.

Idols are springing up everywhere these days - politics, personal health and COVID fear, environmentalism, all have become replacements for God in our secular world. I see many people I love being led astray by them. Once an otherwise good or neutral thing begins making us look down on others, or dehumanize them, justifying things like abortion, or keeps us from going to Mass or from proper worship, or fills us with self righteousness, or makes us justify breaking the commandments, then we have got ourselves an idol! When we are in that state, others better stay away from us lest they be corrupted too.

I have had to do this keeping away, and it is painful. This was the meaning of a vision I had in which the angel "cut the strings" holding me to my loved ones and against which we were straining, and I floated up, out of the turmoil, and understood that I was to wait there until they cut their strings of idolatry and attachment too.