Study Desk

And she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver, and gold, which they have used in the service of Baal.

And it shall come to pass in that day: I will hear, saith the Lord, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth.

And I will sow her for Myself anew in the land, and I will have love, pity, and mercy for her who had not obtained love, pity, and mercy; and I will say to those who were not My people, You are My people, and they shall say, You are my God! 1 Pet. 2:9, 10.">[fn]

And the Lord said to me: Go yet again, and love a woman beloved of her friend, and an adulteress: as the Lord loveth the children of Israel, and they look to strange gods, and love the husks of the grapes.

And after this the children of Israel shall return and shall seek the Lord, their God, and David, their king: and they shall fear the Lord, and his goodness, in the last days.

But yet let not any man judge: and let not a man be rebuked: for thy people are as they that contradict the priest.

My people have been silent, because they had no knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will reject thee, that thou shalt not do the office of priesthood to me: and thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I also will forget thy children.

They shall eat the sins of my people, and shall lift up their souls to their iniquity.

And they shall eat and shall not be filled: they have committed fornication, and have not ceased: because they have forsaken the Lord in not observing the law.

My people have consulted their stocks, and their staff hath declared unto them: for the spirit of fornication hath deceived them, and they have committed fornication against their God.

They offered sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains, and burnt incense upon the hills: under the oak, and the poplar, and the turpentine tree, because the shadow thereof was good: therefore shall your daughters commit fornication, aud your spouses shall be adulteresses.

I will not visit upon your daughters, when they shall commit fornication, and upon your spouses when they shall commit adultery: because themselves conversed with harlots, and offered sacrifice with the effeminate, and the people that doth not understand shall be beaten.

The wind hath bound them up in its wings, and they shall be confounded because of their sacrifices.

They will not set their thoughts to return to their God: for the spirit of fornication is in the midst of them, and they have not known the Lord.

With their flocks and with their herds, they shall go to seek the Lord, and shall not find him: he is withdrawn from them.

In their affliction they will rise early to me: Come, and let us return to the Lord.

And like the jaws of highway robbers, they conspire with the priests who murder in the way those that pass out of Sichem: for they have wrought wickedness.

When I would have healed Israel, the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria, for they have committed falsehood, and the thief is come in to steal, the robber is without.

And lest they may say in their hearts, that I remember all their wickedness: their own devices now have beset them about, they have been done before my face.

They have made the king glad with their wickedness: and the princes with their lies.