Read the Bible

¹ Hear this, O priests!
    Give heed, O house of Israel!
Listen, O house of the king!
    For the judgment pertains to you;
for you have been a snare at Mizpah,
    and a net spread upon Tabor,
² and a pit dug deep in Shittim;^[a]
    but I will punish all of them.

³ I know Ephraim,
    and Israel is not hidden from me;
for now, O Ephraim, you have played the whore;
    Israel is defiled.
⁴ Their deeds do not permit them
    to return to their God.
For the spirit of whoredom is within them,
    and they do not know the Lord.

⁵ Israel's pride testifies against him;
    Ephraim^[b] stumbles in his guilt;
    Judah also stumbles with them.
⁶ With their flocks and herds they shall go
    to seek the Lord,
but they will not find him;
    he has withdrawn from them.
⁷ They have dealt faithlessly with the Lord;
    for they have borne illegitimate children.
    Now the new moon shall devour them along with their fields.

⁸ Blow the horn in Gibeah,
    the trumpet in Ramah.
Sound the alarm at Beth-aven;
    look behind you, Benjamin!
⁹ Ephraim shall become a desolation
    in the day of punishment;
among the tribes of Israel
    I declare what is sure.
¹⁰ The princes of Judah have become
    like those who remove the landmark;
on them I will pour out
    my wrath like water.
¹¹ Ephraim is oppressed, crushed in judgment,
    because he was determined to go after vanity.^[c]
12 Therefore I am like maggots to Ephraim,
    and like rottenness to the house of Judah.
¹³ When Ephraim saw his sickness,
    and Judah his wound,
then Ephraim went to Assyria,
    and sent to the great king.^[d]
But he is not able to cure you
    or heal your wound.
¹⁴ For I will be like a lion to Ephraim,
    and like a young lion to the house of Judah.
I myself will tear and go away;
    I will carry off, and no one shall rescue.
¹⁵ I will return again to my place
    until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face.
    In their distress they will beg my favor: