Study Desk

I write for him myriads of my instruction; they are regarded as a strange thing.

Do not rejoice, O Israel, do not exult like the nations! For you played the whore, departing from your God; you loved a harlot's wage on all the threshing floors of grain.

They will not pour drink offerings of wine to Yahweh, and their sacrifices will not please him. They are like mourners' bread for them; all those who eat it will be defiled. For their bread will be for their hunger; it will not come to the house of Yahweh.

For look! If they flee from the destruction, Egypt will gather them; Memphis will bury them. Nettles will possess their precious things of silver; thorns will be in their tents.

The prophet keeps watch over Ephraim for my God; the snare of a fowler is on all his ways, and hostility in the house of his God.

Israel is a luxuriant vine; he yields fruit for himself. The more his fruit increased, the more he made numerous altars. The more his land prospered, the more he improved his stone pillars.

For now they will say, "We have no king; indeed, we did not fear Yahweh, and what can a king do for us?"

The inhabitants of Samaria tremble for the calf of Beth-aven. Indeed, his people will mourn for it, and his idolatrous priests will wail over it— over its glory because it has departed from it.

In my desire I will punish them; nations will be gathered against them when they are punished for their double iniquities.

Ephraim was a trained heifer, that loved to thresh grain, and I myself spared the fairness of her neck; I will make Ephraim break the ground, Judah will plow, Jacob must till for himself.

Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap loyal love. Break up for yourself fallow ground; it is time to seek Yahweh so he will come and rain righteousness upon you.

He struggled with the angel and prevailed; he pleaded for his mercy. He met him at Bethel, and there he spoke with him.

But you, you must return to your God; keep love and justice, and wait continually for your God.

And Ephraim said, "Surely, I am rich, I gained wealth for myself; in all my toil they have not found guilt in me that is sin.

Jacob fled to the open field of Aram, and Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he watched over sheep.

Ephraim has caused bitter provocation, and his Lord will hold him responsible for his crimes and pay back to him his insults.

And now they sin again, and they make for themselves a molten idol, idols from their silver metal according to their understanding, all of them the work of skilled craftsmen. To these they say, "Sacrifice!" People are kissing bull calves.

The labor pains of childbirth come for him; he is an unwise son because at the proper time, he does not present himself at the mouth of the womb.

Return to Yahweh your God, O Israel, for you have stumbled because of your sin.

Wake up, drunkards, and weep! Wail, all drinkers of wine, over the new wine, for it is cut off from your mouth.