Study Desk

Though I wrote for him ten thousand precepts of My law,They are counted as a strange thing.

As for My sacrificial gifts,They sacrifice the flesh and eat it,But Yahweh has not accepted them.Now He will remember their iniquityAnd punish them for their sins;They will return to Egypt.

Do not be glad, O Israel, with rejoicing like the peoples!For you have played the harlot, forsaking your God.You have loved harlots' earnings on every threshing floor.

They will not pour out drink offerings of wine to Yahweh;Their sacrifices will not please Him.Their bread will be like mourners' bread;All who eat of it will be defiled,For their bread will be for themselves alone;It will not enter the house of Yahweh.

For behold, they will go because of destruction;Egypt will gather them up; Memphis will bury them.Weeds will possess their desirable items of silver;Thorns will be in their tents.

As for Ephraim, their glory will fly away like a bird—No birth, no pregnancy, and no conception!

Ephraim, as I have seen,Is planted in a pasture like Tyre;But Ephraim will bring out his children for killing.

Israel is a luxuriant vine;He produces fruit for himself.The more abundant his fruit,The more altars he abounded;The better his land,The better he made the sacred pillars.

Surely now they will say, "We have no king,For we do not fear Yahweh.As for the king, what can he do for us?"

The dweller of Samaria will fearFor the calf of Beth‑aven.Indeed, its people will mourn for it,And its idolatrous priests will cry out over it,Over its glory, since it has gone into exile from them.

When it is My desire, I will chastise them;And the peoples will be gathered against themWhen they are bound for their double guilt.

And Ephraim is a trained heifer that loves to thresh,But I will come over her fair neck with a yoke;I will harness Ephraim;Judah will plow; Jacob will harrow for himself.

And Ephraim said, "Surely I have become rich;I have found wealth for myself;In all my labors they will find in meNo iniquity, which would be sin."

Now Jacob fled to the field of Aram,And Israel worked for a wife,And for a wife he kept sheep.

And now they sin more and moreAnd make for themselves molten images,Idols made from their silver according to their understanding,All of them the work of craftsmen.They are saying of them, "Let the men who sacrifice kiss the calves!"

The pains of childbirth come upon him;He is not a wise son,For it is not the time that he should delay at the opening of the womb.

Samaria will be held guilty,For she has rebelled against her God.They will fall by the sword;Their infants will be dashed in pieces,And their pregnant women will be ripped open.

Return, O Israel, to Yahweh your God,For you have stumbled in your iniquity.

Assyria will not save us;We will not ride on horses,Nor will we say again, ‘Our god,'To the work of our hands;For in You the orphan finds compassion."

I will heal their turning away from Me;I will love them freely,For My anger has turned away from them.