Yet the number of the Israelites
will be like the sand of the sea,
which cannot be measured or counted.
And in the place where they were told:
You are not My people,
they will be called: Sons of the living God.

Therefore, this is what I will do:
I will block her way with thorns;
I will enclose her with a wall,
so that she cannot find her paths.

She will pursue her lovers but not catch them;
she will seek them but not find them.
Then she will think,
“I will go back to my former husband,
for then it was better for me than now.”

She does not recognize
that it is I who gave her the grain,
the new wine, and the oil.
I lavished silver and gold on her,
which they used for Baal.

I will devastate her vines and fig trees.
She thinks that these are her wages
that her lovers have given her.
I will turn them into a thicket,
and the wild animals will eat them.

There I will give her vineyards back to her
and make the Valley of Achor
into a gateway of hope.
There she will respond as she did
in the days of her youth,
as in the day she came out of the land of Egypt.

On that day I will respond—
this is the Lord’s declaration.
I will respond to the sky,
and it will respond to the earth.

For this reason the land mourns,
and everyone who lives in it languishes,
along with the wild animals and the birds of the sky;
even the fish of the sea disappear.

They will eat but not be satisfied;
they will be promiscuous but not multiply.
For they have abandoned their devotion to the Lord.

Hear this, priests!
Pay attention, house of Israel!
Listen, royal house!
For the judgment applies to you
because you have been a snare at Mizpah
and a net spread out on Tabor.

Ephraim will become a desolation
on the day of punishment;
I announce what is certain
among the tribes of Israel.

The princes of Judah are like those
who move boundary markers;
I will pour out My fury on them like water.

Ephraim is oppressed, crushed in judgment,
for he is determined to follow what is worthless.

What am I going to do with you, Ephraim?
What am I going to do with you, Judah?
Your loyalty is like the morning mist
and like the early dew that vanishes.

Like raiders who wait in ambush for someone,
a band of priests murders on the road to Shechem.
They commit atrocities.

All of them commit adultery;
they are like an oven heated by a baker
who stops stirring the fire
from the kneading of the dough until it is leavened.

For they—their hearts like an oven—
draw him into their oven.
Their anger smolders all night;
in the morning it blazes like a flaming fire.

Israel’s arrogance testifies against them,
yet they do not return to Yahweh their God,
and for all this, they do not seek Him.

They turn, but not to what is above;
they are like a faulty bow.
Their leaders will fall by the sword
because of the cursing of their tongue.
They will be ridiculed for this in the land of Egypt.

Israel cries out to Me,
“My God, we know You!”

Israel has rejected what is good;
an enemy will pursue him.

For this thing is from Israel—
a craftsman made it, and it is not God.
The calf of Samaria will be smashed to bits!

Indeed, they sow the wind
and reap the whirlwind.
There is no standing grain;
what sprouts fails to yield flour.
Even if they did,
foreigners would swallow it up.

Though I were to write out for him
ten thousand points of My instruction,
they would be regarded as something strange.

Though they offer sacrificial gifts
and eat the flesh,
the Lord does not accept them.
Now He will remember their guilt
and punish their sins;
they will return to Egypt.

Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces;
Judah has also multiplied fortified cities.
I will send fire on their cities,
and it will consume their citadels.

They will not stay in the land of the Lord.
Instead, Ephraim will return to Egypt,
and they will eat unclean food in Assyria.

They will not pour out
their wine offerings to the Lord,
and their sacrifices will not please Him.
Their food will be like the bread of mourners;
all who eat it become defiled.
For their bread will be for their appetites alone;
it will not enter the house of the Lord.

What will you do on a festival day,
on the day of the Lord’s feast?

The days of punishment have come;
the days of retribution have come.
Let Israel recognize it!
The prophet is a fool,
and the inspired man is insane,
because of the magnitude
of your guilt and hostility.

I have seen Ephraim like Tyre,
planted in a meadow,
so Ephraim will bring out his children
to the executioner.

Give them, Lord—
What should You give?
Give them a womb that miscarries
and breasts that are dry!

All their evil appears at Gilgal,
for there I came to hate them.
I will drive them from My house
because of their evil, wicked actions.
I will no longer love them;
all their leaders are rebellious.

Israel is a lush vine;
it yields fruit for itself.
The more his fruit increased,
the more he increased the altars.
The better his land produced,
the better they made the sacred pillars.

In fact, they are now saying,
“We have no king!
For we do not fear the Lord.
What can a king do for us?”

They speak mere words,
taking false oaths while making covenants.
So lawsuits break out
like poisonous weeds in the furrows of a field.

The residents of Samaria will have anxiety
over the calf of Beth-aven.
Indeed, its idolatrous priests rejoiced over it;
the people will mourn over it,
over its glory.
It will certainly depart from them.

I will discipline them at My discretion;
nations will be gathered against them
to put them in bondage
for their two crimes.

Sow righteousness for yourselves
and reap faithful love;
break up your unplowed ground.
It is time to seek the Lord
until He comes and sends righteousness
on you like the rain.

So it will be done to you, Bethel,
because of your extreme evil.
At dawn the king of Israel will be totally destroyed.

When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called My son.

It was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
taking them in My arms,
but they never knew that I healed them.

A sword will whirl through his cities;
it will destroy and devour the bars of his gates,
because of their schemes.

My people are bent on turning from Me.
Though they call to Him on high,
He will not exalt them at all.

Jacob struggled with the Angel and prevailed;
he wept and sought His favor.
He found him at Bethel,
and there He spoke with him.

But Ephraim says:
“How rich I have become;
I made it all myself.
In all my earnings,
no one can find any crime in me
that I can be punished for!”

Take words of repentance with you
and return to the Lord.
Say to Him: “Forgive all our sin
and accept what is good,
so that we may repay You
with praise from our lips.

Ephraim, why should I have anything more
to do with idols?
It is I who answer and watch over him.
I am like a flourishing pine tree;
your fruit comes from Me.