Beginning
Israel Has Trusted Wrong Things
8 “Put the trumpet to your lips and give the warning!
The enemy swoops down on my people like an eagle.
The Israelites have broken my agreement.
They have turned against my teachings.
2 They cry out to me,
‘Our God, we in Israel know you!’
3 But Israel has rejected what is good.
So the enemy chases them.
4 They chose their own kings
without asking my permission.
They chose their own leaders,
men I did not know.
They made their silver and gold into idols.
For all this they will be destroyed.
5 I hate that calf-shaped idol.
I am very angry with the people.
How long will they remain unclean?
6 The idol is something a craftsman made.
It is not God.
Israel’s calf-shaped idol
will surely be smashed to pieces.
7 “Israel’s foolish plans are like planting the wind.
But they will harvest a whirlwind.
Her plans are like a stalk with no head of grain.
It produces nothing.
Even if it produces something,
other nations would eat it.
8 Israel is destroyed.
The people are mixed among the other nations.
They have become useless to me.
9 Like a wild donkey,
Israel has run to Assyria.
Israel has hired other nations to protect her.
10 Although Israel is mixed among the nations,
I will gather them together.
They will become weaker and weaker
as they suffer under the great king of Assyria.
11 “The more altars Israel built to remove sin,
the more they have become altars for sinning.
12 They reject the many teachings I have written for them.
They act as if the teachings were strange and foreign to them.
13 The Israelites offer sacrifices to me
and eat the meat.
But the Lord is not pleased with them.
He remembers the evil they have done.
And he will punish them for their sins.
They will be slaves again as they were in Egypt.
14 The people of Israel have forgotten their Maker.
They trust in the palaces they have built.
And Judah trusts in her many strong, walled cities.
But I will send fire on their cities
and destroy their strong towers.”
Israel’s Punishment
9 Israel, do not rejoice.
Don’t celebrate as the other nations do.
You have been unfaithful to your God.
You love the grain on your threshing floors.
So you worship the gods who supposedly gave it.
2 But there won’t be enough grain to feed the people.
And there won’t be enough wine to go around.
3 The Israelites will not stay in the Lord’s land.
Israel will return to being captives as they were in Egypt.
In Assyria they will eat food that they are not allowed to eat.
4 The Israelites will not give offerings of wine to the Lord.
Their sacrifices will not please him.
Their sacrifices will be like food that is eaten at a funeral.
It is unclean, and everyone who eats it becomes unclean.
Their food will only satisfy their hunger.
They cannot sacrifice it in the Temple.
5 What will you do then on the day of feasts
and on the festival days of the Lord?
6 Even if the people are not destroyed,
Egypt will take them as captives.
They will be buried in Memphis.[a]
Weeds will grow over their silver treasures.
Thorns will grow over their houses.
7 Let Israel know this.
The time of punishment has come.
The time to pay for your sins has come.
You have sinned very much,
and your hatred is great.
You think the prophet is a fool.
You say the spiritual man is crazy.
8 The prophet is God’s watchman
to warn Israel of danger.
But everywhere he goes you set traps for him.
You treat him as an enemy in God’s own land.
9 The men of Israel have become as sinful
as the men of Gibeah[b] were.
The Lord will remember the evil things they have done.
He will punish them for their sins.
10 “When I found Israel,
it was like finding grapes in the desert.
Your ancestors were like
finding the first figs on the tree.
But when they came to Baal Peor,
they began worshiping an idol.
They became as disgusting as the thing they worshiped.
11 Israel’s glory will fly away like a bird.
There will be no more pregnancies, no more births, no more babies.
12 But even if the Israelites bring up children,
I will take them all away.
How terrible it will be for them
when I turn away from them!
13 I have seen Israel, like Tyre,
given a pleasant place.
But the people of Israel will soon bring out
their children to be killed.”
14 Lord, give them what they should have.
What will you give them?
Make their women unable to have children.
Give them breasts that cannot feed their babies.
15 “The Israelites were wicked in Gilgal,
so I began to hate them there.
Because of the sinful things they have done,
I will force them to leave my land.
I will no longer love them.
Their leaders have turned against me.
16 Israel is like a sick plant.
Its root is dying, and it has no fruit.
So the people will have no more children.
And if they did, I would kill the children they love.”
17 God will reject them,
because they have not obeyed him.
They will wander among the nations.
Israel Will Pay for Sin
10 Israel is like a vine
that produced plenty of fruit.
As the people became richer,
they built more altars for idols.
As their land became better,
they put up better stone pillars to honor false gods.
2 Their heart was false.
Now they must pay for their guilt.
The Lord will break down their altars.
He will destroy their holy stone pillars.
3 Then the Israelites will say, “We have no king,
because we didn’t honor the Lord.
But even if we had one,
he couldn’t do anything for us.”
4 They make many false promises.
They make agreements they don’t keep.
So people sue each other in court.
They are like poisonous weeds growing in a plowed field.
5 The people from Israel are worried about
the calf-shaped idol at Beth Aven.
The people and the priests will cry
because their glorious idol is gone.
6 It will be carried off as a payment that was demanded
to the great king of Assyria.
Israel will be disgraced.
The people will be ashamed of trusting that idol.
7 The king of Israel will be carried off
like a chip of wood floating on the water.
8 The places of worship at Beth Aven will be destroyed.
They are where Israel sins.
Thorns and weeds will grow up
and cover their altars.
Then they will say to the mountains, “Cover us!”
And they will say to the hills, “Fall on us!”
9 “Israel, you have sinned since the time of Gibeah.[c]
The people there have continued sinning.
But war will surely overwhelm them,
because of the evil they have done there.
10 When I am ready,
I will come to punish them.
Armies will come together against them.
They will be punished for their many sins.
11 Israel is like a well-trained young cow
that likes to thresh grain.
But I will put a yoke on her neck.
I will make Israel work hard in the field.
Judah will plow.
Israel will break up the ground.
12 I said, ‘Break new ground.
Plant what is right.
Then you will harvest good things
from your loyalty to me.
It is time for you to turn back to me, the Lord.
Do it until I come and pour out my goodness on you.’
13 But you have planted evil.
So you have harvested trouble.
You have trusted in your own power
and your many soldiers.
Now you must live with the result of your lies.
14 So your armies will hear the noise of battle.
And all your strong, walled cities will be destroyed.
It will be like the time King Shalman
destroyed Beth Arbel in battle.
Mothers and children were crushed to the ground together.
15 The same will happen to you, people of Bethel,
because you did so much evil.
When that time comes,
the king of Israel will die.
God’s Love for Israel
11 “When Israel was a child, I loved him.
And I called my son out of Egypt.
2 But the more I called to the people of Israel,
the further they went from me.
They offered sacrifices to the Baals.
They burned incense to the idols.
3 But it was I who taught Israel to walk.
I took them by the arms.
But they did not understand
that I had healed them.
4 I led them with cords of human kindness,
with ties of love.
I lifted the yoke from their neck.
I bent down and fed them.
5 “The Israelites will become captives again, as they were in Egypt.
The king of Assyria will become their king.
This is because they refuse to turn to God.
6 War will sweep through their cities.
It will destroy them,
because of their wicked plans.
7 My people have made up their minds
to turn away from me.
The prophets call them to turn to me.
But none of them honors me at all.
8 “Israel, I don’t want to give you up.
I don’t want to go away and leave you.
I don’t want to make you like Admah.
I don’t want to treat you like Zeboiim.[d]
My heart beats for you.
My love for you stirs up my pity.
9 I won’t punish you in my anger.
I won’t destroy Israel again.
I am God and not man.
I am the Holy One, and I am among you.
I will not come against you in anger.
10 I will call for my people like
a lion calling for its young.
My children will come and follow me.
They will hurry to me from the west.
11 They will come swiftly
like birds from a captivity like Egypt was,
and like doves from Assyria.
I will settle them again in their homes,”
says the Lord.
The Lord Is Against Israel
12 Israel has surrounded me with lies.
The people of Israel have made their secret plans.
And Judah turns against God,
the faithful Holy One.
12 What Israel does is as useless as chasing the wind,
as dangerous as being in a windstorm.
They tell more and more lies
and do more and more violence.
They make agreements with Assyria,
and they send a gift of olive oil to Egypt.
2 The Lord also has some things against Judah.
He will punish Israel for what they have done.
He will give them what they deserve.
3 Their ancestor Jacob held on to his brother’s heel
while the two of them were being born.
When Jacob grew to be a man,
he wrestled with God.
4 He wrestled with the angel and won.
Jacob cried and asked for his blessing.
Later, God met with him at Bethel
and spoke with him there.
5 He is the Lord God of heaven’s armies.
He wants to be remembered as the Lord.
6 Like Jacob you must return to him.
You must be loyal and true to him.
You must do what is honest and just.
You must always trust in him as your God.
7 The merchants use dishonest scales.
They like to cheat people.
8 The people of Israel brag that they are rich.
They think that because they are rich
no one will learn about their sins.
9 “But I am the Lord your God.
I brought you out of Egypt.
I will make you live in tents again
as you used to do in the desert.
10 I spoke to the prophets
and gave them many visions.
Through them, I taught my lessons to you.”
11 The people of Gilead are evil.
They are worth nothing.
People sacrifice bulls at Gilgal.
But their altars will become like
piles of stone in a plowed field.
12 Your ancestor Jacob fled to Northwest Mesopotamia.
There he worked to get a wife.
He tended sheep to pay for her.
13 Later the Lord used a prophet
to bring Jacob’s descendants out of Egypt.
The Lord used a prophet
to take care of the Israelites.
14 But the Israelites made the Lord angry.
They killed other people.
They deserve to die for their crimes.
The Lord will make them pay
for the disgraceful things they have done.
The Final Word Against Israel
13 People used to fear the tribe of Ephraim.
They were important people in Israel.
But they sinned by worshiping Baal.
So they must die.
2 But they keep on sinning more and more.
They make idols of their silver.
Those idols are cleverly made.
They are the work of a craftsman.
Yet the people of Israel say to each other,
“Kiss those calf idols and sacrifice to them.”
3 So those people will be like the morning dew.
They will disappear like the morning mist.
They will be like chaff blown from the threshing floor.
They will vanish away like smoke rising from a chimney.
4 “I have been the Lord their God
since they were in the land of Egypt.
They have really known no other God except me.
I am the one who has saved them.
5 I cared for them in the desert
where it was hot and dry.
6 I gave them food, and they became full and satisfied.
But then they became proud and forgot me.
7 That is why I will be like a lion to them.
I will be like a leopard waiting by the road.
8 I will attack like a bear robbed of her cubs.
I will rip their bodies open.
I will devour them like a lion.
I will tear them apart like a wild animal.
9 “Israel, I will destroy you
for turning against me, your helper.
10 What good are your kings and your leaders now?
Can they save you in any of your towns?
You asked for them, saying,
‘Give us a king and leaders.’
11 So I gave you kings, but only in anger.
And I took them away in my great anger.
12 The sins of Israel are on record.
They are filed away, waiting for punishment.
13 Israel has a chance to live again,
but the people are too foolish to take it.
They are like an unborn baby
who won’t come out of its mother’s womb.
14 So I will not save them from the place where the dead are.
I will not rescue them from death.
I will call on death to hurt them.
I will call on the place where the dead are to destroy them.
I will show them no mercy.
15 Israel has become important among the nations.
But the Lord will send a destroyer from the east.
He will come like a wind from the desert
that dries up all the springs and wells of water.
He will destroy all their treasures,
everything of value.
16 The nation of Israel will be punished,
because it fought against God.
The people of Israel will die by the sword.
Their children will be torn to pieces.
And their pregnant women will be ripped open.”
Israel Returns to God
14 Israel, return to the Lord your God.
Your sins have caused your ruin.
2 Come back to the Lord
and say these words to him:
“Take away all our sin
and kindly receive us.
Then we will give you the praise we promised you.
3 Assyria cannot save us.
We will not trust in our horses.
We will not say again, ‘Our gods,’
to the things our hands have made.
You show mercy to us, who are like orphans.”
4 The Lord says,
“I will forgive them for leaving me.
I will love them freely.
I am not angry with them anymore.
5 I will be like the dew to Israel.
It will blossom like a lily.
Like the cedar trees in Lebanon,
its roots will be firm.
6 The people will be like spreading branches.
They will be like the beautiful olive trees.
They will be like the sweet-smelling cedars in Lebanon.
7 The people of Israel will again live under my protection.
They will grow like the grain.
They will bloom like a vine.
They will be as famous as the wine of Lebanon.
8 Israel, have nothing to do with idols.
I, the Lord, am the one who answers your prayers.
I am the one who watches over you.
I am like a green pine tree.
Your blessings come from me.”
9 A wise person will know these things.
An understanding person will take them to heart.
The Lord’s ways are right.
Good people live by following them,
but those who turn against God die because of them.
The Holy Bible, International Children’s Bible® Copyright© 1986, 1988, 1999, 2015 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission.