Study Desk

And I said to her: Thou shalt wait for me many days: thou shalt not play the harlot, and thou shalt be no man’s, and I also will wait for thee.

For the children of Israel shall sit many days without king, and without prince, and without sacrifice, and without altar, and without ephod, and without theraphim.

Hear the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel, for the Lord shall enter into judgment with the inhabitants of the land: for there is no truth, and there is no mercy, and there is no knowledge of God in the land.

But yet let not any man judge: and let not a man be rebuked: for thy people are as they that contradict the priest.

My people have consulted their stocks, and their staff hath declared unto them: for the spirit of fornication hath deceived them, and they have committed fornication against their God.

For Israel hath gone astray like a wanton heifer now will the Lord feed them, as a lamb in a spacious place.

Hear ye this, O priests, and hearken, O ye house of Israel, and give ear, O house of the king: for there is a judgment against you, because you have been a snare to them whom you should have watched over and a net spread upon Thabor.

I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hid from me for now Ephraim hath committed fornication, Israel is defiled.

They will not set their thoughts to return to their God: for the spirit of fornication is in the midst of them, and they have not known the Lord.

They have transgressed against the Lord: for they have begotten children that are strangers: now shall a month devour them with their portions.

For I will be like a lioness to Ephraim, and like a lion’s whelp to the house of Juda: I, I will catch, and go: I will take away, and there is none that can rescue.

For he hath taken us, and he will heal us: he will strike, and he will cure us.

For this reason have I hewed them by the prophets, I have slain them by the words of my mouth: and thy judgments shall go forth as the light.

For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice: and the knowledge of God more than holocausts.

And like the jaws of highway robbers, they conspire with the priests who murder in the way those that pass out of Sichem: for they have wrought wickedness.

When I would have healed Israel, the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria, for they have committed falsehood, and the thief is come in to steal, the robber is without.

Because they have applied their heart like an oven, when he laid snares for them: he slept all the night baking them, in the morning he himself was heated as a flaming fire.

Woe to them, for they have departed from me: they shall be wasted because they have transgressed against me: and I redeemed them: and they have spoken lies against me.

They returned, that they might be without yoke: they became like a deceitful bow: their princes shall fall by the sword, for the rage of their tongue. This is their derision in the land of Egypt.

For itself also is the invention of Israel: a workman made it, and it is no god: for the calf of Samaria shall be turned to spiders’ webs.