In God's abundant grace and mercy, He forgave Israel their sin of idolatry; however, there were still consequences. God still wouldn't abide with them in camp. In addition, although He would still allow them to go into the promised land, He had a very stern warning, they were not to commit idolatry with the gods of the pagan occupants of the land.
This is a stern warning to us. Before we say we would never do this, consider the State of Washington recognizing two Muslim holidays. This is an official act. Christians are to be discipling the nations, instead, in the name of tolerance, we are being discipled by ungodly religions.
