To hold with the hare and run with the hounds

I will cut off them that worship and that swear by the Lord,

and that swear by Malcham.

  Zephaniah 1:5

"Such persons thought themselves safe because they were with both parties:

they went with the followers of Jehovah, and bowed at the same time to Malcham.

 

But duplicity is abominable with God,

and hypocrisy His soul hateth.

 

The idolater who distinctly gives himself to his false god,

has one sin less than he who brings his polluted and detestable sacrifice unto the temple of the Lord, while his heart is with the world and the sins thereof.

 

To hold with the hare and run with the hounds,

is a dastard's policy.

 

 The penalty pronounced in the verse before us is terrible, but it is well deserved;

 

for how should divine justice spare the sinner,

who knows the right,

approves it,

and professes to follow it,

and all the while loves the evil,

and gives it dominion in his heart?

 

God fills the whole universe, and hence there is no room for another god;

if, then, He reigns in my heart, there will be no space for another reigning power."

 Charles Spurgeon