Verse 8 lists items associated with wealth, but few would suggest that these are bad things per se. The idols in verse 9 are not meant to juxtapose the riches and the idols but rather are both meant to depict the debilitating effects of eastern influences. The temptation of these influences is not that they promise worldly riches but that those riches bring other practices that pollute Judah, especially idolatry. This temptation is particularly alluring because some of these foreign gods so closely resemble Israelite beliefs. I have already mentioned the similarity between the Canaanite Baal and Yahweh. (See commentary accompanying 2 Nephi 2:17 and 5:22–23.) That close association tells us why it was so easy for Israel to adopt Baal worship over worship for Yahweh. The competition listed in 1 Kings 18:21–40 was a competition between similar deities. The temptation was always there to accept the false because of its seeming familiarity.
Victor Ludlow suggests: “Instead of influencing their neighbors by worshiping the one true God in a Zion-like society, they were being influenced by their neighbors’ gods of silver and gold and their wicked lifestyle. Israel was following after the treasures of man instead of leading toward the riches of eternal life.” When Nephi read this section of Isaiah he doubtless saw it in terms of his vision of the future of his people, a future that would similarly be clouded by their fascination with other cultures and adoption of at least some of the facets of those cultures.