Study Desk

The people of Judah and the people of Israel will come together; they will appoint one leader and will come up out of the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel.

"Rebuke your mother, rebuke her, for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband. Let her remove the adulterous look from her face and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts.

She will chase after her lovers but not catch them; she will look for them but not find them. Then she will say, ‘I will go back to my husband as at first, for then I was better off than now.'

She has not acknowledged that I was the one who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil, who lavished on her the silver and gold— which they used for Baal.

I will punish her for the days she burned incense to the Baals; she decked herself with rings and jewelry, and went after her lovers, but me she forgot," declares the Lord .

In that day I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky and the creatures that move along the ground. Bow and sword and battle I will abolish from the land, so that all may lie down in safety.

I will plant her for myself in the land; I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one.' I will say to those called ‘Not my people,' ‘You are my people'; and they will say, ‘You are my God.'"

So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and a lethek of barley.

For the Israelites will live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred stones, without ephod or household gods.

"But let no one bring a charge, let no one accuse another, for your people are like those who bring charges against a priest.

The more priests there were, the more they sinned against me; they exchanged their glorious God for something disgraceful.

And it will be: Like people, like priests. I will punish both of them for their ways and repay them for their deeds.

"When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his sores, then Ephraim turned to Assyria, and sent to the great king for help. But he is not able to cure you, not able to heal your sores.

For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, like a great lion to Judah. I will tear them to pieces and go away; I will carry them off, with no one to rescue them.

For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.

As marauders lie in ambush for a victim, so do bands of priests; they murder on the road to Shechem, carrying out their wicked schemes.

"Also for you, Judah, a harvest is appointed. "Whenever I would restore the fortunes of my people,

Israel's arrogance testifies against him, but despite all this he does not return to the Lord his God or search for him.

They do not cry out to me from their hearts but wail on their beds. They slash themselves, appealing to their gods for grain and new wine, but they turn away from me.

They do not turn to the Most High; they are like a faulty bow. Their leaders will fall by the sword because of their insolent words. For this they will be ridiculed in the land of Egypt.