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The fortress will disappear from Ephraim
    and the kingdom from Damascus,
and the remnant of Aram will be
    like the glory of the people of Israel,
            says the Lord of hosts.(A)

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11 Ephraim’s glory shall fly away like a bird—
    no birth, no pregnancy, no conception!(A)

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for before the child knows how to call ‘My father’ or ‘My mother,’ the wealth of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria will be carried away by the king of Assyria.”(A)

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16 For before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be deserted.(A)

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For the head of Aram is Damascus,
    and the head of Damascus is Rezin.

(Within sixty-five years Ephraim will be shattered, no longer a people.)(A)

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Then the mountains will melt under him,
    and the valleys will burst open
like wax near the fire,
    like waters poured down a slope.(A)
All this is for the transgression of Jacob
    and for the sins of the house of Israel.
What is the transgression of Jacob?
    Is it not Samaria?
And what is the high place[a] of Judah?
    Is it not Jerusalem?(B)
Therefore I will make Samaria a heap in the open country,
    a place for planting vineyards.
I will pour down her stones into the valley
    and uncover her foundations.(C)
All her images shall be beaten to pieces,
    all her wages shall be burned with fire,
    and all her idols I will lay waste;
for as the wages of a prostitute she gathered them,
    and as the wages of a prostitute they shall again be used.(D)

The Doom of the Cities of Judah

For this I will lament and wail;
    I will go barefoot and naked;
I will make lamentation like the jackals
    and mourning like the ostriches.(E)
For her wound[b] is incurable.
    It has come to Judah;
it has reached to the gate of my people,
    to Jerusalem.(F)

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Footnotes

  1. 1.5 Heb what are the high places
  2. 1.9 Gk Syr Vg: Heb wounds

14 Those who swear by Ashimah of Samaria
    and say, “As your god lives, O Dan,”
and, “As the way of Beer-sheba lives”—
    they shall fall and never rise again.(A)

The Destruction of Israel

I saw the Lord standing beside[a] the altar, and he said:

Strike the capitals until the thresholds shake
    and shatter them on the heads of all the people,[b]
and those who are left I will kill with the sword;
    not one of them shall flee away,
    not one of them shall escape.(B)

Though they dig into Sheol,
    from there shall my hand take them;
though they climb up to heaven,
    from there I will bring them down.(C)
Though they hide themselves on the top of Carmel,
    from there I will search out and take them;
and though they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea,
    there I will command the serpent, and it shall bite them.(D)
And though they go into captivity in front of their enemies,
    there I will command the sword, and it shall kill them;
and I will fix my eyes on them
    for harm and not for good.(E)

The Lord, God of hosts,
he who touches the earth and it melts,
    and all who live in it mourn,
and all of it rises like the Nile
    and sinks again, like the Nile of Egypt,(F)
who builds his upper chambers in the heavens
    and founds his vault upon the earth,
who calls for the waters of the sea
    and pours them out upon the surface of the earth—
the Lord is his name.(G)

Are you not like the Cushites to me,
    O people of Israel? says the Lord.
Did I not bring Israel up from the land of Egypt
    and the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir?(H)
The eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom,
    and I will destroy it from the face of the earth
    —except that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob,
            says the Lord.(I)

For I will command
    and shake the house of Israel among all the nations,
as one shakes with a sieve
    but no pebble shall fall to the ground.(J)
10 All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword,
    who say, “Evil shall not overtake or meet us.”(K)

Footnotes

  1. 9.1 Or on
  2. 9.1 Heb all of them

Therefore they shall now be the first to go into exile,
    and the revelry of the loungers shall pass away.(A)

The Lord God has sworn by himself
(says the Lord, the God of hosts):
I abhor the pride of Jacob
    and hate his strongholds,
    and I will deliver up the city and all that is in it.(B)

If ten people remain in one house, they shall die. 10 And if a relative, one who burns it,[a] takes up the body to bring it out of the house and says to someone in the innermost parts of the house, “Is anyone else with you?” the answer will come, “No.” Then the relative[b] shall say, “Hush! We must not mention the name of the Lord.”

11 For the Lord commands,
    and he will shatter the great house to bits
    and the little house to pieces.(C)

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Footnotes

  1. 6.10 Meaning of Heb uncertain
  2. 6.10 Heb he

25 Did you bring to me sacrifices and offerings the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?(A) 26 You shall take up Sakkuth your king and Kaiwan your star god, your images,[a] which you made for yourselves; 27 therefore I will take you into exile beyond Damascus, says the Lord, whose name is the God of hosts.(B)

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Footnotes

  1. 5.26 Heb your images, your star god

Proclaim to the strongholds in Ashdod
    and to the strongholds in the land of Egypt,
and say, “Assemble yourselves on Mount[a] Samaria,
    and see what great tumults are within it
    and what oppressions are in its midst.”(A)
10 They do not know how to do right, says the Lord,
    those who store up violence and robbery in their strongholds.(B)
11 Therefore thus says the Lord God:
An adversary shall surround the land
    and strip you of your defense,
    and your strongholds shall be plundered.(C)

12 Thus says the Lord: As the shepherd rescues from the mouth of the lion two legs or a piece of an ear, so shall the people of Israel who live in Samaria be rescued, with the corner of a couch and part[b] of a bed.(D)

13 Hear and testify against the house of Jacob,
    says the Lord God, the God of hosts:(E)
14 On the day I punish Israel for its transgressions,
    I will punish the altars of Bethel,
and the horns of the altar shall be cut off
    and fall to the ground.
15 I will tear down the winter house as well as the summer house,
    and the houses of ivory shall perish,
and the great houses[c] shall come to an end,
            says the Lord.(F)

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Footnotes

  1. 3.9 Gk Syr: Heb the mountains of
  2. 3.12 Meaning of Heb uncertain
  3. 3.15 Or many houses

Judgment on Israel

Thus says the Lord:
For three transgressions of Israel,
    and for four, I will not revoke the punishment,[a]
because they sell the righteous for silver
    and the needy for a pair of sandals—(A)
they who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth
    and push the afflicted out of the way;
father and son go in to the same young woman,
    so that my holy name is profaned;(B)
they lay themselves down beside every altar
    on garments taken in pledge;
and in the house of their God they drink
    wine bought with fines they imposed.(C)

Yet I destroyed the Amorite before them,
    whose height was like the height of cedars
    and who was as strong as oaks;
I destroyed his fruit above
    and his roots beneath.(D)

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Footnotes

  1. 2.6 Heb cause it to return

So I will become like a lion to them;
    like a leopard I will lurk beside the way.(A)
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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14 therefore the tumult of war shall rise against your people,
    and all your fortresses shall be destroyed,
as Shalman destroyed Beth-arbel on the day of battle,
    when mothers were dashed in pieces with their children.(A)

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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.(A)
17 Because they have not listened to him,
    my God will reject them;
    they shall become wanderers among the nations.(B)

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Israel is swallowed up;
    now they are among the nations
    as a useless vessel.(A)

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13 When Ephraim saw his sickness
    and Judah his wound,
then Ephraim went to Assyria
    and sent to the great king.[a]
But he is not able to cure you
    or heal your wound.(A)
14 For I will be like a lion to Ephraim
    and like a young lion to the house of Judah.
I myself will tear and go away;
    I will carry off, and no one shall rescue.(B)

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Footnotes

  1. 5.13 Cn: Heb to a king who will contend

For the Israelites shall remain many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or teraphim.(A)

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She conceived again and bore a daughter. Then the Lord said to him, “Name her Lo-ruhamah,[a] for I will no longer have pity on the house of Israel or forgive them.(A)

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Footnotes

  1. 1.6 That is, not pitied

And the Lord said to him, “Name him Jezreel,[a] for in a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel.(A)

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Footnotes

  1. 1.4 That is, God sows

Judgment on Corrupt Rulers, Priests, and Prophets

28 Woe to the proud garland of the drunkards of Ephraim
    and the fading flower of its glorious beauty,
    at the head of the fertile valley,
    those overcome with wine!(A)
See, the Lord has one who is mighty and strong,
    like a storm of hail, a destroying tempest,
like a storm of mighty, overflowing waters;
    with force he will hurl them down to the earth.(B)
Trampled under foot will be
    the proud garland of the drunkards of Ephraim.(C)
And the fading flower of its glorious beauty,
    at the head of the fertile valley,
will be like a first-ripe fig before the summer;
    whoever sees it eats it up
    as soon as it comes to hand.(D)

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On that day
    the glory of Jacob will be brought low,
    and the fat of his flesh will grow lean.(A)

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14 But now the Lord says, “In three years, like the years of a hired worker, the glory of Moab will be brought into contempt, in spite of all its great multitude, and those who survive will be very few and feeble.”(A)

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Is not Calno like Carchemish?
    Is not Hamath like Arpad?
    Is not Samaria like Damascus?(A)

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In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria captured Samaria; he carried the Israelites away to Assyria. He placed them in Halah, on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.(A)

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The king of Assyria listened to him; the king of Assyria marched up against Damascus and took it, carrying its people captive to Kir; then he killed Rezin.(A)

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