Then the Lord said to me, “Go again, love a woman (Gomer) who is beloved by her husband and yet is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love the raisin cakes [used in the feasts in pagan worship].”

My people consult with their wooden idol, and answer to a stick of wood. Indeed the spirit of prostitution has led them astray, and they have been unfaithful to their God.

He has rejected your [pagan] calf, O Samaria, saying,
“My wrath burns against them.”
How long will they be incapable of innocence?

That idol was made by a workman -- it is not God! The calf idol of Samaria will be broken to bits.

For Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces [and pagan temples],
And Judah has built many fortified cities;
But I will send a fire upon their cities so that it may consume their palaces and fortresses.

I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness, and saw their fathers as the first figs in the top of the fig tree. But they are gone to Baalpeor, and run away from me to that shameful Idol, and are become as abominable as their lovers.

The people of Samaria will fear and tremble
For the [idolatrous] calf of Beth-aven (House of Wickedness).
Indeed, its people will mourn over it
And its idolatrous priests will cry out and wail over it,
Over its glory, because the glory [of their calf god] has departed from it.

Even the calf idol will be carried to Assyria, as tribute for the great king. Ephraim will be disgraced; Israel will be put to shame because of its wooden idol.

Also the high places of Aven (Beth-aven), the sin of Israel, will be destroyed;
The thorn and the thistle will grow on their [pagan] altars,
And [in despair] they will say to the mountains,
“Cover us!” And to the hills, “Fall on us!”

And now they sin again, and they make for themselves a molten idol, idols from their silver metal according to their understanding, all of them the work of skilled craftsmen. To these they say, "Sacrifice!" People are kissing bull calves.