Study Desk

When I please, I will discipline them; I will gather nations together to attack them, to bind them in chains for their two sins.

Ephraim was a well-trained heifer who loved to thresh grain; I myself put a fine yoke on her neck. I will harness Ephraim. Let Judah plow! Let Jacob break up the unplowed ground for himself!

Sow righteousness for yourselves, reap unfailing love. Break up the unplowed ground for yourselves, for it is time to seek the Lord , until he comes and showers deliverance on you.

He struggled with an angel and prevailed; he wept and begged for his favor. He found God at Bethel, and there he spoke with him!

As for the Lord God Almighty, the Lord is the name by which he is remembered!

But you must return to your God, by maintaining love and justice, and by waiting for your God to return to you.

Jacob fled to the country of Aram, then Israel worked to acquire a wife; he tended sheep to pay for her.

But Ephraim bitterly provoked him to anger; so he will hold him accountable for the blood he has shed, his Lord will repay him for the contempt he has shown.

Even now they persist in sin! They make metal images for themselves, idols that they skillfully fashion from their own silver; all of them are nothing but the work of craftsmen! There is a saying about them: "Those who sacrifice to the calf idol are calf kissers!"

I cared for you in the wilderness, in the dry desert where no water was.

Where then is your king, that he may save you in all your cities? Where are your rulers for whom you asked, saying, "Give me a king and princes"?

The punishment of Ephraim has been decreed; his punishment is being stored up for the future.

Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God, for your sin has been your downfall!

Assyria cannot save us; we will not ride warhorses. We will never again say, ‘Our gods' to what our own hands have made. For only you will show compassion to Orphan Israel!"

"I will heal their waywardness and love them freely, for my anger will turn away from them.

O Ephraim, I do not want to have anything to do with idols anymore! I will answer him and care for him. I am like a luxuriant cypress tree; your fruitfulness comes from me!

Who is wise? Let him discern these things! Who is discerning? Let him understand them! For the ways of the Lord are right; the godly walk in them, but in them the rebellious stumble.

For a nation has invaded our land. There are so many of them they are too numerous to count. Their teeth are like those of a lion; they tear apart their prey like a lioness.

Be distressed, farmers; wail, vinedressers, over the wheat and the barley. For the harvest of the field has perished.

How awful that day will be! For the day of the Lord is near; it will come as destruction from the Divine Destroyer.