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But like Adam,[a] you broke my covenant
    and betrayed my trust.

“Gilead is a city of sinners,
    tracked with footprints of blood.
Priests form bands of robbers,
    waiting in ambush for their victims.
They murder travelers along the road to Shechem
    and practice every kind of sin.
10 Yes, I have seen something horrible in Ephraim and Israel:
    My people are defiled by prostituting themselves with other gods!

11 “O Judah, a harvest of punishment is also waiting for you,
    though I wanted to restore the fortunes of my people.

Israel’s Love for Wickedness

“I want to heal Israel, but its[b] sins are too great.
    Samaria is filled with liars.
Thieves are on the inside
    and bandits on the outside!
Its people don’t realize
    that I am watching them.
Their sinful deeds are all around them,
    and I see them all.

“The people entertain the king with their wickedness,
    and the princes laugh at their lies.
They are all adulterers,
    always aflame with lust.
They are like an oven that is kept hot
    while the baker is kneading the dough.
On royal holidays, the princes get drunk with wine,
    carousing with those who mock them.
Their hearts are like an oven
    blazing with intrigue.
Their plot smolders[c] through the night,
    and in the morning it breaks out like a raging fire.
Burning like an oven,
    they consume their leaders.
They kill their kings one after another,
    and no one cries to me for help.

Footnotes

  1. 6:7 Or But at Adam.
  2. 7:1 Hebrew Ephraim’s, referring to the northern kingdom of Israel; similarly in 7:8, 11.
  3. 7:6 Hebrew Their baker sleeps.

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