Then the Lord said: "Name him 'Not My People' (Lo-Ammi), because you are not my people and I am not your God."

However, in the future the number of the people of Israel will be like the sand of the sea which can be neither measured nor numbered. Although it was said to them, "You are not my people," it will be said to them, "You are children of the living God!"

I will have no pity on her children, because they are children conceived in adultery.

For their mother has committed adultery; she who conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, "I will seek out my lovers; they are the ones who give me my bread and my water, my wool, my flax, my olive oil, and my wine.

I will destroy her vines and fig trees, about which she said, "These are my wages for prostitution that my lovers gave to me!" I will turn her cultivated vines and fig trees into an uncultivated thicket, so that wild animals will devour them.

Then I will plant her as my own in the land. I will have pity on 'No Pity' (Lo-Ruhamah). I will say to 'Not My People' (Lo-Ammi), 'You are my people!' And he will say, 'You are my God!'"

Those who revolt are knee-deep in slaughter, but I will discipline them all.

The princes of Judah are like those who move boundary markers. I will pour out my rage on them like a torrential flood!

Gilead is a city full of evildoers; its streets are stained with bloody footprints!

whenever I want to heal Israel, the sin of Ephraim is revealed, and the evil deeds of Samaria are exposed. For they do what is wrong; thieves break into houses, and gangs rob people out in the streets.

They do not realize that I remember all of their wicked deeds. Their evil deeds have now surrounded them; their sinful deeds are always before me.

They are all like bakers, they are like a smoldering oven; they are like a baker who does not stoke the fire until the kneaded dough is ready for baking.

They approach him, all the while plotting against him. Their hearts are like an oven; their anger smolders all night long, but in the morning it bursts into a flaming fire.

All of them are blazing like an oven; they devour their rulers. All of their kings fall -- and none of them call on me!

Foreigners are consuming what his strenuous labor produced, but he does not recognize it! His head is filled with gray hair, but he does not realize it!

I will throw my bird net over them while they are flying, I will bring them down like birds in the sky; I will discipline them when I hear them flocking together.

They turn to Baal; they are like an unreliable bow. Their leaders will fall by the sword because their prayers to Baal have made me angry. So people will disdain them in the land of Egypt.

O Samaria, he has rejected your calf idol! My anger burns against them! They will not survive much longer without being punished, even though they are Israelites!

O Israel, do not rejoice jubilantly like the nations, for you are unfaithful to your God. You love to receive a prostitute's wages on all the floors where you thresh your grain.

The prophet is a watchman over Ephraim on behalf of God, yet traps are laid for him along all of his paths; animosity rages against him in the land of his God.

Just as lion cubs are born predators, so Ephraim will bear his sons for slaughter.

Because of all their evil in Gilgal, I hate them there. On account of their evil deeds, I will drive them out of my land. I will no longer love them; all their rulers are rebels.

My people are obsessed with turning away from me; they call to Baal, but he will never exalt them!

How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I surrender you, O Israel? How can I treat you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboiim? I have had a change of heart! All my tender compassions are aroused!

Even now they persist in sin! They make metal images for themselves, idols that they skillfully fashion from their own silver; all of them are nothing but the work of craftsmen! There is a saying about them: "Those who sacrifice to the calf idol are calf kissers!"

Where then is your king, that he may save you in all your cities? Where are your rulers for whom you asked, saying, "Give me a king and princes"?

Who is wise? Let him discern these things! Who is discerning? Let him understand them! For the ways of the Lord are right; the godly walk in them, but in them the rebellious stumble.