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Relentless Judgment on Israel

When Ephraim spoke, there was trembling;

he was exalted in Israel;

but he incurred guilt through Baal and died.

And now they keep on sinning

and make a cast image for themselves,

idols of silver made according to their understanding,

all of them the work of artisans.

“Sacrifice to these,” they say.

People are kissing calves!

Therefore they shall be like the morning mist

or like the dew that goes away early,

like chaff that swirls from the threshing floor

or like smoke from a window.

Yet I have been the L ord your God

ever since the land of Egypt;

you know no God but me,

and besides me there is no savior.

It was I who fed you in the wilderness,

in the land of drought.

When I fed them, they were satisfied;

they were satisfied, and their heart was proud;

therefore they forgot me.

So I will become like a lion to them,

like a leopard I will lurk beside the way.

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.

I will destroy you, O Israel;

who can help you?

Where now is your king, that he may save you?

Where in all your cities are your rulers,

of whom you said,

“Give me a king and rulers”?

I gave you a king in my anger,

and I took him away in my wrath.

Ephraim’s iniquity is bound up;

his sin is kept in store.

The pangs of childbirth come for him,

but he is an unwise son;

for at the proper time he does not present himself

at the mouth of the womb.

Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol?

Shall I redeem them from Death?

O Death, where are your plagues?

O Sheol, where is your destruction?

Compassion is hidden from my eyes.

Although he may flourish among rushes,

the east wind shall come, a blast from the L ord,

rising from the wilderness;

and his fountain shall dry up,

his spring shall be parched.

It shall strip his treasury

of every precious thing.

Samaria shall bear her guilt,

because she has rebelled against her God;

they shall fall by the sword,

their little ones shall be dashed in pieces,

and their pregnant women ripped open.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

The Prophet shows here that the people were in every way intractable. He has indeed handled this argument in other places; but the repetition is not superfluous. After he had said that the people were ungrateful in not continuing in the service of their Redeemer, by whom they had been so kindly and bountifully treated in the desert, where they must have perished through famine and want, had not the Lord in an unwonted manner brought them help in their great necessity, he now adds, “The Lord would have also allured you by other means, had you not been of a wholly wild and barbarous disposition: but it is hence manifest, that you are utterly disobedient; for after you have been brought out of the desert, you came to rich pastures.” For the land of Israel is here compared to rich and fertile pastures; as though he said, “God has placed you in an inheritance where you might eat to the full, as when a shepherd leads his sheep to a spot especially fertile.” What did take place? To their pastures they came, and were filled; they were filled, and elevated became their heart, and they forgat me

Since, then, the Israelites had extinguished the memory of their redemption, after the Lord had fed them when hungry in the desert, and since in their fulness they rejected God, and shook off his yoke, and, like ferocious horses, kicked against him, it became evident that their nature was so unnameable, that they could by no means be reduced to obedience or submission. We shall defer the rest till tomorrow.