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Impending Judgment on Israel and Judah

Hear this, O priests!
    Give heed, O house of Israel!
Listen, O house of the king!
    For the judgment pertains to you,
for you have been a snare at Mizpah
    and a net spread upon Tabor(A)

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The prophet is a sentinel for my God over Ephraim,
yet a hunter’s snare is on all his ways
    and hostility in the house of his God.(A)

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As robbers lie in wait[a] for someone,
    so the priests are banded together;[b]
they murder on the road to Shechem;
    they commit a monstrous crime.(A)

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Footnotes

  1. 6.9 Cn: Meaning of Heb uncertain
  2. 6.9 Syr: Heb are a company

And now, O priests, this command is for you.

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The faithful have disappeared from the land,
    and there is no one left who is upright;
they all lie in wait for blood,
    and they hunt each other with nets.(A)

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Hear this, you rulers of the house of Jacob
    and chiefs of the house of Israel,
who abhor justice
    and pervert all equity,(A)

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the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate,
    and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste,
    and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.”(A)

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15 Thus it shall be done to you, O Bethel,
    because of your great wickedness.
At dawn the king of Israel
    shall be utterly cut off.(A)

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11 Ephraim’s glory shall fly away like a bird—
    no birth, no pregnancy, no conception!(A)
12 Even if they bring up children,
    I will bereave them until no one is left.
Woe to them indeed
    when I depart from them!(B)
13 Once I saw Ephraim as a young palm planted in a lovely meadow,[a]
    but now Ephraim must lead out his children for slaughter.(C)
14 Give them, O Lord
    what will you give?
Give them a miscarrying womb
    and dry breasts.

15 Every evil of theirs began at Gilgal;
    there I came to hate them.
Because of the wickedness of their deeds
    I will drive them out of my house.
I will love them no more;
    all their officials are rebels.(D)

16 Ephraim is stricken,
    their root is dried up,
    they shall bear no fruit.
Even though they give birth,
    I will kill the cherished offspring of their womb.(E)
17 Because they have not listened to him,
    my God will reject them;
    they shall become wanderers among the nations.(F)

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Footnotes

  1. 9.13 Meaning of Heb uncertain

God Accuses Israel

Hear the word of the Lord, O people of Israel,
    for the Lord has an indictment against the inhabitants of the land.
There is no faithfulness or loyalty
    and no knowledge of God in the land.(A)

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12 A letter came to him from the prophet Elijah, saying, “Thus says the Lord, the God of your father David: Because you have not walked in the ways of your father Jehoshaphat or in the ways of King Asa of Judah(A) 13 but have walked in the way of the kings of Israel and have led Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem into unfaithfulness, as the house of Ahab led Israel into unfaithfulness, and because you also have killed your brothers, members of your father’s house, who were better than you,(B) 14 see, the Lord will bring a great plague on your people, your children, your wives, and all your possessions, 15 and you yourself will have a severe sickness with a disease of your bowels until your bowels come out, day after day, because of the disease.”(C)

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18 “Go down to meet King Ahab of Israel, who rules[a] in Samaria; he is now in the vineyard of Naboth, where he has gone to take possession.(A) 19 You shall say to him: Thus says the Lord: Have you killed and also taken possession? You shall say to him: Thus says the Lord: In the place where dogs licked up the blood of Naboth, dogs will also lick up your blood.”(B)

20 Ahab said to Elijah, “Have you found me, O my enemy?” He answered, “I have found you. Because you have sold yourself to do what is evil in the sight of the Lord,(C) 21 I will bring disaster on you; I will consume you and will cut off from Ahab every male, bond or free, in Israel,(D) 22 and I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam son of Nebat and like the house of Baasha son of Ahijah, because you have provoked me to anger and have caused Israel to sin.

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Footnotes

  1. 21.18 Heb who is

She sent and summoned Barak son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali and said to him, “The Lord, the God of Israel, commands you, ‘Position yourself at Mount Tabor, taking ten thousand from the tribe of Naphtali and the tribe of Zebulun.(A)

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Corruption of the Priesthood

A son honors his father and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is the honor due me? And if I am a master, where is the respect due me? says the Lord of hosts to you, O priests, who despise my name. You say, “How have we despised your name?”(A)

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15 He brings all of them up with a hook;
    he drags them out with his net;
he gathers them in his seine,
    so he rejoices and exults.(A)
16 Therefore he sacrifices to his net
    and makes offerings to his seine,
for by them his portion is lavish,
    and his food is rich.
17 Is he then to keep on emptying his net
    and destroying nations without mercy?(B)

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Wicked Rulers and Prophets

And I said:
Listen, you heads of Jacob
    and rulers of the house of Israel!
Should you not know justice?—(A)

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I will fall upon them like a bear robbed of her cubs
    and will tear open the covering of their heart;
there I will devour them like a lion,
    as a wild animal would mangle them.

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By their wickedness they make the king glad,
    and the officials by their treachery.
They are all adulterers;
    they are like a heated oven
whose baker does not need to stir the fire
    from the kneading of the dough until it is leavened.(A)
On the day of our king the officials
    became sick with the heat of wine;
    he stretched out his hand with mockers.(B)

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My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge!
    Because you have rejected knowledge,
    I reject you from being a priest to me;
and since you have forgotten the law of your God,
    I also will forget your children.(A)

The more they increased,
    the more they sinned against me;
    they changed[a] their glory into shame.(B)

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Footnotes

  1. 4.7 Tg Syr: MT I will change

18 As I live, says the King,
    whose name is the Lord of hosts,
one is coming
    like Tabor among the mountains
    and like Carmel by the sea.(A)

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Exhortation to Repent

22 Thus says the Lord: Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and speak there this word,(A) and say: Hear the word of the Lord, O king of Judah sitting on the throne of David—you, and your servants, and your people who enter these gates.(B) Thus says the Lord: Act with justice and righteousness and deliver from the hand of the oppressor anyone who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place.(C) For if you will indeed obey this word, then through the gates of this house shall enter kings who sit on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses—they, their servants, and their people. But if you will not heed these words, I swear by myself, says the Lord, that this house shall become a desolation.(D) For thus says the Lord concerning the house of the king of Judah:

You are like Gilead to me,
    like the summit of Lebanon,
but I swear that I will make you a desert,
    uninhabited cities.(E)
I will prepare destroyers against you,
    all with their weapons;
they shall cut down your choicest cedars
    and cast them into the fire.(F)

And many nations will pass by this city, and all of them will say one to another, “Why has the Lord dealt in this way with that great city?”(G) And they will answer, “Because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord their God and worshiped other gods and served them.”(H)

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18 Say to the king and the queen mother:
    “Take a lowly seat,
for your beautiful crown
    has come down from your head.”[a](A)

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Footnotes

  1. 13.18 Gk Syr Vg: Meaning of Heb uncertain

Go, tell Jeroboam, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Because I exalted you from among the people, made you leader over my people Israel,(A) and tore the kingdom away from the house of David to give it to you, yet you have not been like my servant David, who kept my commandments and followed me with all his heart, doing only that which was right in my sight,(B) but you have done evil above all those who were before you and have gone and made for yourself other gods and cast images, provoking me to anger, and have thrust me behind your back,(C) 10 therefore I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam. I will cut off from Jeroboam every male, both bond and free in Israel, and will consume the house of Jeroboam, just as one burns up dung until it is all gone.(D) 11 Anyone belonging to Jeroboam who dies in the city the dogs shall eat, and anyone who dies in the open country the birds of the air shall eat, for the Lord has spoken.’(E) 12 Therefore set out, go to your house. When your feet enter the city, the child shall die.(F) 13 All Israel shall mourn for him and bury him, for he alone of Jeroboam’s family shall come to the grave, because in him there is found something pleasing to the Lord, the God of Israel, in the house of Jeroboam.(G) 14 Moreover the Lord will raise up for himself a king over Israel who shall cut off the house of Jeroboam today, even right now![a](H)

15 “The Lord will strike Israel as a reed is shaken in the water; he will root up Israel out of this good land that he gave to their ancestors and scatter them beyond the Euphrates, because they have made their sacred poles,[b] provoking the Lord to anger.(I) 16 He will give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, which he sinned and which he caused Israel to commit.”(J)

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Footnotes

  1. 14.14 Meaning of Heb uncertain
  2. 14.15 Or Asherahs