Study Desk

My people are destroyed for lack of the knowledge [of God]: because you have rejected the knowledge [of God], I will also reject you, that you shall be no priest to me: seeing you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your sons.

And it shall be, like people, like priest; and I will punish them for their ways, and will requite them their doings.

My people ask counsel at their stock, and their staff declares to them; for the spirit of prostitution has caused them to err, and they have prostituted, [departing] from under their God.

I will not punish your daughters when they commit prostitution, nor your brides when they commit adultery; for [the men] themselves go apart with prostitutes, and they sacrifice with prostitutes; and the people that does not understand shall be overthrown.

For Israel has behaved himself stubbornly, like a stubborn heifer: now Yahweh will feed them as a lamb in a large place.

Hear this, O you priests, and listen, O house of Israel, and give ear, O house of the king; for to you pertains the judgment; for you have been a snare at Mizpah, and a net spread on Tabor.

I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hid from me; for now, O Ephraim, you have prostituted, Israel is defiled.

Their doings will not allow them to turn to their God; for the spirit of prostitution is inside them, and they don't know Yahweh.

They have dealt treacherously against Yahweh; for they have borne strange sons: now shall the new moon devour them with their fields.

For I will be to Ephraim as a lion, and as a young lion to the house of Judah: I, even I, will tear and go away; I will carry off, and there shall be none to deliver.

Come, and let us return to Yahweh; for he has torn, and he will heal us; he has smitten, and he will bind us up.

O Ephraim, what shall I do to you? O Judah, what shall I do to you? for your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the dew that goes early away.

For I desire goodness, and not sacrifice; and knowledge of God more than burnt-offerings.

And as troops of robbers wait for a man, so the company of priests murder in the way toward Shechem; yes, they have committed lewdness.

Also, O Judah, there is a harvest appointed for you, when I bring back the captivity of my people.

When I would heal Israel, then is the iniquity of Ephraim uncovered, and the wickedness of Samaria; for they commit falsehood, and the thief enters in, and the troop of robbers ravages outside.

For they have brought their heart into their ambush, as into an oven: their baker sleeps all the night; in the morning it burns as a flaming fire.

And the pride of Israel testifies to his face: yet they have not returned to Yahweh their God, nor sought him, for all this.

Woe to them! for they have wandered from me; destruction to them! for they have trespassed against me: though I would redeem them, yet they have spoken lies against me.

And they have not cried to me with their heart, but they howl on their beds: they gash themselves for grain and new wine; they rebel against me.