Exodus 34:12 "Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land where you are going, or they will be a snare among you." (God is giving His people instructions about their interactions with the people with whom they will come in contact in the Promised Land to which the Lord is leading them. He has specific instructions and warnings. The word for treaty is the same word as covenant. The Lord warns the people not to make covenant with those who are not God followers, with those who do not acknowledge God as Lord, with those who live lives of sinful rebellion against God. He warns His people that coming into agreement and relationship with these people through a treaty is tantamount to making covenant with them. Even though the Lord will Himself lead His people to this place, He wants them to keep themselves separate from the ways of the people there. He also warns us not to engage in the ways of the world, not to adopt its attitudes and standards. He warns His people then and us today that, if we do, we will be snared, the word for a noose that entraps and ensnares. In fact, the meaning of the word snare here implies an entrapment that hooks its prey by the nose to trap it and make it helpless and obedient. When we make covenant with the world, make a treaty of agreement, when we adjust our standards and values to the world's, we not only sin against the Lord Who has saved us from it, but we entrap ourselves, causing ourselves to be captured and led around by the nose. The Lord had called the Israelites and still us today to be in the world, to live in the world, but to be separate from the world.)
