Judgment of Israel’s Sin
Doa not rejoice, O Israel, with joy like other peoples,
For you have played the harlot against your God.
You have made love for bhire on every threshing floor.
2 The threshing floor and the winepress
Shall not feed them,
And the new wine shall fail in her.
3 They shall not dwell in athe Lord’s land,
bBut Ephraim shall return to Egypt,
And cshall eat unclean things in Assyria.
4 They shall not offer wine offerings to the Lord,
Nor ashall their bsacrifices be pleasing to Him.
It shall be like bread of mourners to them;
All who eat it shall be defiled.
For their bread shall be for their own life;
It shall not come into the house of the Lord.
5 What will you do in the appointed day,
And in the day of the feast of the Lord?
6 For indeed they are gone because of destruction.
Egypt shall gather them up;
Memphis shall bury them.
aNettles shall possess their valuables of silver;
Thorns shall be in their tents.
7 The adays of punishment have come;
The days of recompense have come.
Israel knows!
The prophet is a bfool,
cThe spiritual man is insane,
Because of the greatness of your iniquity and great enmity.
8 The awatchman of Ephraim is with my God;
But the prophet is a fowler’s snare in all his ways—
Enmity in the house of his God.
9 aThey are deeply corrupted,
As in the days of bGibeah.
He will remember their iniquity;
He will punish their sins.
10 “I found Israel
Like grapes in the awilderness;
I saw your fathers
As the bfirstfruits on the fig tree in its first season.
But they went to cBaal Peor,
And separated themselves to that shame;
dThey became an abomination like the thing they loved.
11 As for Ephraim, their glory shall fly away like a bird—
No birth, no pregnancy, and no conception!
12 Though they bring up their children,
Yet I will bereave them to the last man.
Yes, awoe to them when I depart from them!
13 Just aas I saw Ephraim like Tyre, planted in a pleasant place,
So Ephraim will bring out his children to the murderer.”
14 Give them, O Lord—
What will You give?
Give them aa miscarrying womb
And dry breasts!
15 “All their wickedness is in aGilgal,
For there I hated them.
Because of the evil of their deeds
I will drive them from My house;
I will love them no more.
bAll their princes are rebellious.
16 Ephraim is astricken,
Their root is dried up;
They shall bear no fruit.
Yes, were they to bear children,
I would kill the darlings of their womb.”
17 My God will acast them away,
Because they did not obey Him;
And they shall be bwanderers among the nations.
The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Copyright © 1982 Thomas Nelson.
All rights reserved.