Study Desk

So I will visit the days of the Baals upon herWhen she used to offer offerings in smoke to themAnd adorn herself with her earrings and jewelryAnd go after her lovers, so that she forgot Me," declares Yahweh.

So I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouthSo that they will be remembered by their names no more.

So I bargained for her for myself for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a half of barley.

Then I said to her, "You shall stay with me for many days. You shall not play the harlot, nor shall you have a man; so I will also be toward you."

There is swearing of oaths, deception, murder, stealing, and adultery.They break forth in violence so that bloodshed follows bloodshed.

So you will stumble by day,And the prophet also will stumble with you by night;And I will destroy your mother.

And it will be like people, like priest;So I will punish them for their waysAnd cause their deeds to return to them.

I will not punish your daughters when they play the harlotOr your brides when they commit adultery,For the men themselves go apart with harlotsAnd offer sacrifices with cult prostitutes;So the people without understanding are ruined.

Then Ephraim saw his sickness,And Judah his sore,So Ephraim went to AssyriaAnd sent to King Jareb.But he is unable to heal youOr to cure you of your sore.

So let us know, let us pursue to know Yahweh.His going forth is established as the dawn;And He will come to us like the rain,Like the late rain watering the earth."

And as raiders wait for a man,So a band of priests murder on the way to Shechem;Surely they have committed lewdness.

So the pride of Israel answers against him,Yet they have not returned to Yahweh their God,Nor have they sought Him, for all this.

So Ephraim has become like a silly dove, without a heart of wisdom;They call to Egypt; they go to Assyria.

For from Israel is even this!A craftsman made it, so it is not God;Surely the calf of Samaria will be smashed to splinters.

So Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces;And Judah has multiplied fortified cities,But I will send a fire on its cities that it may consume its palatial dwellings.

So My people are hung up on turning from Me.Though they call them to the One on high,None at all exalts Him.

Ephraim has provoked to bitter anger;So his Lord will leave his bloodguilt on himAnd cause his reproach to return to him.

So I will be like a lion to them;Like a leopard I will lie in wait by the wayside.

Whoever is wise, so let him discern these things;Whoever is discerning, let him know them.For the ways of Yahweh are right,And the righteous will walk in them,But transgressors will stumble in them.

A day of darkness and thick darkness,A day of clouds and dense gloom.As the dawn is spread over the mountains,So there is a numerous and mighty people;There has never been anything like it,Nor will there be again after itFor the years from generation to generation.