Study Desk

Then God told him: "Name him Jezreel. It won't be long now before I'll make the people of Israel pay for the massacre at Jezreel. I'm calling it quits on the kingdom of Israel. Payday is coming! I'm going to chop Israel's bows and arrows into kindling in the valley of Jezreel."

"Haul your mother into court. Accuse her! She's no longer my wife. I'm no longer her husband. Tell her to quit dressing like a whore, displaying her breasts for sale. If she refuses, I'll rip off her clothes and expose her, naked as a newborn. I'll turn her skin into dried-out leather, her body into a badlands landscape, a rack of bones in the desert. I'll have nothing to do with her children, born one and all in a whorehouse. Face it: Your mother's been a whore, bringing bastard children into the world. She said, ‘I'm off to see my lovers! They'll wine and dine me, Dress and caress me, perfume and adorn me!' But I'll fix her: I'll dump her in a field of thistles, then lose her in a dead-end alley. She'll go on the hunt for her lovers but not bring down a single one. She'll look high and low but won't find a one. Then she'll say, ‘I'm going back to my husband, the one I started out with. That was a better life by far than this one.' She didn't know that it was I all along who wined and dined and adorned her, That I was the one who dressed her up in the big-city fashions and jewelry that she wasted on wild Baal-orgies. I'm about to bring her up short: No more wining and dining! Silk lingerie and gowns are a thing of the past. I'll expose her genitals to the public. All her fly-by-night lovers will be helpless to help her. Party time is over. I'm calling a halt to the whole business, her wild weekends and unholy holidays. I'll wreck her sumptuous gardens and ornamental fountains, of which she bragged, ‘Whoring paid for all this!' They will soon be dumping grounds for garbage, feeding grounds for stray dogs and cats. I'll make her pay for her indulgence in promiscuous religion— all that sensuous Baal worship And all the promiscuous sex that went with it, stalking her lovers, dressed to kill, And not a thought for me." God 's Message!

"At that time"—this is God 's Message still— "you'll address me, ‘Dear husband!' Never again will you address me, ‘My slave-master!' I'll wash your mouth out with soap, get rid of all the dirty false-god names, not so much as a whisper of those names again. At the same time I'll make a peace treaty between you and wild animals and birds and reptiles, And get rid of all weapons of war. Think of it! Safe from beasts and bullies! And then I'll marry you for good—forever! I'll marry you true and proper, in love and tenderness. Yes, I'll marry you and neither leave you nor let you go. You'll know me, God , for who I really am.

The people of Israel are going to live a long time stripped of security and protection, without religion and comfort, godless and prayerless. But in time they'll come back, these Israelites, come back looking for their God and their David-King. They'll come back chastened to reverence before God and his good gifts, ready for the End of the story of his love.

"But don't look for someone to blame. No finger pointing! You, priest, are the one in the dock. You stumble around in broad daylight, And then the prophets take over and stumble all night. Your mother is as bad as you. My people are ruined because they don't know what's right or true. Because you've turned your back on knowledge, I've turned my back on you priests. Because you refuse to recognize the revelation of God, I'm no longer recognizing your children. The more priests, the more sin. They traded in their glory for shame. They pig out on my people's sins. They can't wait for the latest in evil. The result: You can't tell the people from the priests, the priests from the people. I'm on my way to make them both pay and take the consequences of the bad lives they've lived. They'll eat and be as hungry as ever, have sex and get no satisfaction. They walked out on me, their God , for a life of rutting with whores.

"Bloated by arrogance, big as a house, they're a public disgrace, The lot of them—Israel, Ephraim, Judah— lurching and weaving down their guilty streets. When they decide to get their lives together and go off looking for God once again, They'll find it's too late. I, God , will be long gone. They've played fast and loose with me for too long, filling the country with their bastard offspring. A plague of locusts will devastate their violated land.

"When Ephraim saw he was sick and Judah saw his pus-filled sores, Ephraim went running to Assyria, went for help to the big king. But he can't heal you. He can't cure your oozing sores.

"I'm a grizzly charging Ephraim, a grizzly with cubs charging Judah. I'll rip them to pieces—yes, I will! No one can stop me now. I'll drag them off. No one can help them. Then I'll go back to where I came from until they come to their senses. When they finally hit rock bottom, maybe they'll come looking for me."

"Come on, let's go back to God . He hurt us, but he'll heal us. He hit us hard, but he'll put us right again. In a couple of days we'll feel better. By the third day he'll have made us brand-new, Alive and on our feet, fit to face him. We're ready to study God , eager for God-knowledge. As sure as dawn breaks, so sure is his daily arrival. He comes as rain comes, as spring rain refreshing the ground."

"Ephraim is bird-brained, mindless, clueless, First chirping after Egypt, then fluttering after Assyria. I'll throw my net over them. I'll clip their wings. I'll teach them to mind me! Doom! They've run away from home. Now they're really in trouble! They've defied me. And I'm supposed to help them while they feed me a line of lies? Instead of crying out to me in heartfelt prayer, they whoop it up in bed with their whores, Gash themselves bloody in their sex-and-religion orgies, but turn their backs on me. I'm the one who gave them good minds and healthy bodies, and how am I repaid? With evil scheming! They turn, but not to me— turn here, then there, like a weather vane. Their rulers will be cut down, murdered— just deserts for their mocking blasphemies. And the final sentence? Ridicule in the court of world opinion."

"Ephraim has built a lot of altars, and then uses them for sinning. Can you believe it? Altars for sinning! I write out my revelation for them in detail and they pretend they can't read it. They offer sacrifices to me and then they feast on the meat. God is not pleased! I'm fed up—I'll keep remembering their guilt. I'll punish their sins and send them back to Egypt. Israel has forgotten his Maker and gotten busy making palaces. Judah has gone in for a lot of fortress cities. I'm sending fire on their cities to burn down their fortifications."

Don't waste your life in wild orgies, Israel. Don't party away your life with the heathen. You walk away from your God at the drop of a hat and like a whore sell yourself promiscuously at every sex-and-religion party on the street. All that party food won't fill you up. You'll end up hungrier than ever. At this rate you'll not last long in God 's land: Some of you are going to end up bankrupt in Egypt. Some of you will be disillusioned in Assyria. As refugees in Egypt and Assyria, you won't have much chance to worship God — Sentenced to rations of bread and water, and your souls polluted by the spirit-dirty air. You'll be starved for God , exiled from God 's own country. Will you be homesick for the old Holy Days? Will you miss festival worship of God ? Be warned! When you escape from the frying pan of disaster, you'll fall into the fire of Egypt. Egypt will give you a fine funeral! What use will all your god-inspired silver be then as you eke out a living in a field of weeds?

Time's up. Doom's at the doorstep. It's payday! Did Israel bluster, "The prophet is crazy! The ‘man of the Spirit' is nuts!"? Think again. Because of your great guilt, you're in big trouble. The prophet is looking out for Ephraim, working under God's orders. But everyone is trying to trip him up. He's hated right in God's house, of all places. The people are going from bad to worse, rivaling that ancient and unspeakable crime at Gibeah. God's keeping track of their guilt. He'll make them pay for their sins.

"Long ago when I came upon Israel, it was like finding grapes out in the desert. When I found your ancestors, it was like finding a fig tree bearing fruit for the first time. But when they arrived at Baal-peor, that pagan shrine, they took to sin like a pig to filth, wallowing in the mud with their newfound friends. Ephraim is fickle and scattered, like a flock of blackbirds, their beauty dissipated in confusion and clamor, Frenetic and noisy, frigid and barren, and nothing to show for it—neither conception nor childbirth. Even if they did give birth, I'd declare them unfit parents and take away their children! Yes indeed—a black day for them when I turn my back and walk off! I see Ephraim letting his children run wild. He might just as well take them and kill them outright!"

Ephraim was a trained heifer that loved to thresh. Passing by and seeing her strong, sleek neck, I wanted to harness Ephraim, Put Ephraim to work in the fields— Judah plowing, Jacob harrowing: Sow righteousness, reap love. It's time to till the ready earth, it's time to dig in with God , Until he arrives with righteousness ripe for harvest. But instead you plowed wicked ways, reaped a crop of evil and ate a salad of lies. You thought you could do it all on your own, flush with weapons and manpower. But the volcano of war will erupt among your people. All your defense posts will be leveled As viciously as king Shalman leveled the town of Beth-arba, When mothers and their babies were smashed on the rocks. That's what's ahead for you, you so-called people of God, because of your off-the-charts evil. Some morning you're going to wake up and find Israel, king and kingdom, a blank—nothing.

"When Israel was only a child, I loved him. I called out, ‘My son!'—called him out of Egypt. But when others called him, he ran off and left me. He worshiped the popular sex gods, he played at religion with toy gods. Still, I stuck with him. I led Ephraim. I rescued him from human bondage, But he never acknowledged my help, never admitted that I was the one pulling his wagon, That I lifted him, like a baby, to my cheek, that I bent down to feed him. Now he wants to go back to Egypt or go over to Assyria— anything but return to me! That's why his cities are unsafe—the murder rate skyrockets and every plan to improve things falls to pieces. My people are hell-bent on leaving me. They pray to god Baal for help. He doesn't lift a finger to help them. But how can I give up on you, Ephraim? How can I turn you loose, Israel? How can I leave you to be ruined like Admah, devastated like luckless Zeboim? I can't bear to even think such thoughts. My insides churn in protest. And so I'm not going to act on my anger. I'm not going to destroy Ephraim. And why? Because I am God and not a human. I'm The Holy One and I'm here—in your very midst.

What are you waiting for? Return to your God! Commit yourself in love, in justice! Wait for your God, and don't give up on him—ever!

Are you going to repeat the life of your ancestor Jacob? He ran off guilty to Aram, Then sold his soul to get ahead, and made it big through treachery and deceit. Your real identity is formed through God-sent prophets, who led you out of Egypt and served as faithful pastors. As it is, Ephraim has continually and inexcusably insulted God. Now he has to pay for his life-destroying ways. His Master will do to him what he has done.

"When birth pangs signaled it was time to be born, Ephraim was too stupid to come out of the womb. When the passage into life opened up, he didn't show. Shall I intervene and pull them into life? Shall I snatch them from a certain death? Who is afraid of you, Death? Who cares about your threats, Tomb? In the end I'm abolishing regret, banishing sorrow, Even though Ephraim ran wild, the black sheep of the family. " God 's tornado is on its way, roaring out of the desert. It will devastate the country, leaving a trail of ruin and wreckage. The cities will be gutted, dear possessions gone for good. Now Samaria has to face the charges because she has rebelled against her God: Her people will be killed, babies smashed on the rocks, pregnant women ripped open."

Religion Customized to Taste God once let loose against Ephraim a terrifying sentence against Israel: Caught and convicted in the lewd sex-worship of Baal—they died! And now they're back in the sin business again, manufacturing god-images they can use, Religion customized to taste. Professionals see to it: Anything you want in a god you can get. Can you believe it? They sacrifice live babies to these dead gods— kill living babies and kiss golden calves! And now there's nothing left to these people: hollow men, desiccated women, Like scraps of paper blown down the street, like smoke in a gusty wind. "I'm still your God , the God who saved you out of Egypt. I'm the only real God you've ever known. I'm the one and only God who delivers. I took care of you during the wilderness hard times, those years when you had nothing. I took care of you, took care of all your needs, gave you everything you needed. You were spoiled. You thought you didn't need me. You forgot me. "I'll charge them like a lion, like a leopard stalking in the brush. I'll jump them like a sow grizzly robbed of her cubs. I'll rip out their guts. Coyotes will make a meal of them. Crows will clean their bones. I'm going to destroy you, Israel. Who is going to stop me? Where is your trusty king you thought would save you? Where are all the local leaders you wanted so badly? All these rulers you insisted on having, demanding, ‘Give me a king! Give me leaders!'? Well, long ago I gave you a king, but I wasn't happy about it. Now, fed up, I've gotten rid of him. I have a detailed record of your infidelities— Ephraim's sin documented and stored in a safe-deposit box. "When birth pangs signaled it was time to be born, Ephraim was too stupid to come out of the womb. When the passage into life opened up, he didn't show. Shall I intervene and pull them into life? Shall I snatch them from a certain death? Who is afraid of you, Death? Who cares about your threats, Tomb? In the end I'm abolishing regret, banishing sorrow, Even though Ephraim ran wild, the black sheep of the family. " God 's tornado is on its way, roaring out of the desert. It will devastate the country, leaving a trail of ruin and wreckage. The cities will be gutted, dear possessions gone for good. Now Samaria has to face the charges because she has rebelled against her God: Her people will be killed, babies smashed on the rocks, pregnant women ripped open."