Study Desk

As for My sacrificial gifts, They sacrifice the flesh and eat it, But the LORD has taken no delight in them. Now He will remember their guilt, And punish them for their sins; They will return to Egypt.

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

Do not rejoice, Israel, with jubilation like the nations! For you have been unfaithful, abandoning your God. You have loved the earnings of unfaithfulness on every threshing floor.

They will not pour out drink offerings of wine to the LORD, Nor will their sacrifices please Him. Their bread will be to them like mourners' bread; All who eat it will be defiled, Because their bread will be for themselves alone; It will not enter the house of the LORD.

For behold, they will be gone because of destruction; Egypt will gather them together, Memphis will bury them. Weeds will take possession of their treasures 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 is going to bring out his children for slaughter.

Israel is a luxuriant vine; He produces fruit for himself. The more his fruit, The more altars he made; The richer his land, The better he made the memorial stones.

Their heart is deceitful; Now they must suffer for their guilt. The LORD will break down their altars And destroy their memorial stones.

Certainly now they will say, "We have no king, For we do not revere the LORD. As for the king, what can he do for us?"

The inhabitants of Samaria will fear For 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 left it.

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

Ephraim is a trained heifer that loves to thresh, And I passed over her lovely neck; I will harness Ephraim, Judah will plow, Jacob will harrow for himself.

Sow for yourselves, with a view to righteousness; Harvest in accordance with kindness. Break up your uncultivated ground, For it is time to seek the LORD Until He comes and rains righteousness on you.

I will not carry out My fierce anger; I will not destroy Ephraim again. For I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst, And I will not come in wrath.

So as for you, return to your God, Maintain kindness and justice, And wait for your God continually.

And Ephraim said, "I have certainly become rich, I have found wealth for myself; In all my labors they will find in me No wrongdoing, which would be sin."

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

Ephraim has provoked God to bitter anger; So his Lord will leave his guilt for bloodshed on him And bring his disgrace back to him.

And now they sin more and more, And make for themselves cast metal images, Idols skillfully made from their silver, All of them the work of craftsmen. They say of them, "Let the people who sacrifice kiss the calves!"