Judgment on Israel and Judah

1Hear this, priests, and pay attention, house of Israel, and listen closely, house of the king. For there is a judgment against you, because you have become a trap for those you watched over, and a net stretched out over Tabor.

2And you have led astray victims into the depths, though I am the teacher of them all.

3I know Ephraim, and Israel has not been hidden from me, yet now Ephraim has committed fornication, and Israel has been contaminated.

4They 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.

5And the arrogance of Israel will answer to his face. And Israel and Ephraim will fall in their iniquity, and even Judah will fall with them.

6With their flocks and their herds, they will go to seek the Lord, and they will not find him. He has taken himself away from them.

7They have sinned against the Lord. For they have conceived sons that are strangers. Now one month will devour them with all their own.

8Sound the bugle in Gibeah, the trumpet in Ramah. Shout in Bethaven, behind your back, O Benjamin.

9Ephraim will be in desolation on the day of correction, for within the tribes of Israel, I have revealed faith.

10The leaders of Judah have become like those who assume the end. I will pour my wrath over them like water.

11Ephraim has been enduring malicious slander and broken judgment, because he began to go after filth.

12And I will be like a moth to Ephraim, and like decay to the house of Judah.

13And Ephraim saw his own weakness, and Judah his chains. And Ephraim went to Assur, and he sent to the Avenging king. But he will not be able to heal you, nor is he able to release you from your chains.

14For I will be like a lioness to Ephraim, and like a lion’s offspring to the house of Judah. I myself will seize and go forth. I will take away, and there is no one who can rescue.

15I will go and return to my place, until you shall grow faint and seek my face.