17 “And you, son of man, set your face against the daughters of your people, who prophesy out of their own minds. Prophesy against them 18 and say, Thus says the Lord God: Woe to the women who sew magic bands upon all wrists, and make veils for the heads of persons of every stature, in the hunt for souls! Will you hunt down souls belonging to my people and keep your own souls alive? 19 You have profaned me among my people for handfuls of barley and for pieces of bread, putting to death souls who should not die and keeping alive souls who should not live, by your lying to my people, who listen to lies.
20 “Therefore thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am against your magic bands with which you hunt the souls like birds, and I will tear them from your arms, and I will let the souls whom you hunt go free, the souls like birds.21 Your veils also I will tear off and deliver my people out of your hand, and they shall be no more in your hand as prey, and you shall know that I am the Lord. 22 Because you have disheartened the righteous falsely, although I have not grieved him, and you have encouraged the wicked, that he should not turn from his evil way to save his life, 23 therefore you shall no more see false visions nor practise divination. I will deliver my people out of your hand. And you shall know that I am the Lord.”
The final section of the chapter makes a charge against the so-called prophetesses - 'so-called', because in fact it seems they were not so much prophetesses, as those that were dabbling in the black arts. The precise meaning of the 'pillows' and 'arm-holes' in 18 is in question: the probable reference is to some sort of 'amulets' attached to the hands or arms as magic charms, and used in incantations in the hunt for souls - i.e. in the corrupting and destroying of men's souls. It is this that the Lord was against. The nearest analogy, one supposes, is the kind of practice that witch doctors, for example, in primitive tribes indulge in, to bring people into their power, by arts of ju-ju. We know as a matter of fact that the people of God descended to this kind of Satanism several times in their history, as for example, in the time of the Judges, and certainly in these last days of declension, immediately prior to the captivity. If the emergence of Satanism is one of the significant marks of a decadent and dying civilisation in any age, then what are we to say of the undoubted marks of a demonic influence in our own land, in the growing practice of black magic rites, and the increasing emphasis on the occult and on the satanic in the pop-culture of our day? Are we able to discern the signs of the times?