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4. Charge Against Israel

¹ Hear the word of the LORD, you Israelites,
   because the LORD has a charge to bring
   against you who live in the land:
“There is no faithfulness, no love,
   no acknowledgment of God in the land.
² There is only cursing, That is, to pronounce a curse on lying and murder,
   stealing and adultery;
they break all bounds,
   and bloodshed follows bloodshed.
³ Because of this the land dries up,
   and all who live in it waste away;
the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky
   and the fish in the sea are swept away.

    ⁴ “But let no one bring a charge,
   let no one accuse another,
for your people are like those
   who bring charges against a priest.
⁵ You stumble day and night,
   and the prophets stumble with you.
So I will destroy your mother—
    ⁶ my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.

   “Because you have rejected knowledge,
   I also reject you as my priests;
because you have ignored the law of your God,
   I also will ignore your children.
⁷ The more priests there were,
   the more they sinned against me;
   they exchanged their glorious God Syriac (see also an ancient Hebrew scribal tradition); Masoretic Text me; / I will exchange their glory for something disgraceful.
⁸ They feed on the sins of my people
   and relish their wickedness.
⁹ And it will be: Like people, like priests.
   I will punish both of them for their ways
   and repay them for their deeds.

    ¹⁰ “They will eat but not have enough;
   they will engage in prostitution but not flourish,
because they have deserted the LORD
   to give themselves ¹¹ to prostitution;
old wine and new wine
   take away their understanding.
¹² My people consult a wooden idol,
   and a diviner’s rod speaks to them.
A spirit of prostitution leads them astray;
   they are unfaithful to their God.
¹³ They sacrifice on the mountaintops
   and burn offerings on the hills,
under oak, poplar and terebinth,
   where the shade is pleasant.
Therefore your daughters turn to prostitution
   and your daughters-in-law to adultery.

    ¹⁴ “I will not punish your daughters
   when they turn to prostitution,
nor your daughters-in-law
   when they commit adultery,
because the men themselves consort with harlots
   and sacrifice with shrine prostitutes—
   a people without understanding will come to ruin!

¹⁵ “Though you, Israel, commit adultery,
do not let Judah become guilty.

   “Do not go to Gilgal;
   do not go up to Beth Aven. Beth Aven means house of wickedness (a derogatory name for Bethel, which means house of God).
   And do not swear, ‘As surely as the LORD lives!’
¹⁶ The Israelites are stubborn,
   like a stubborn heifer.
How then can the LORD pasture them
   like lambs in a meadow?
¹⁷ Ephraim is joined to idols;
   leave him alone!
¹⁸ Even when their drinks are gone,
   they continue their prostitution;
   their rulers dearly love shameful ways.
¹⁹ A whirlwind will sweep them away,
   and their sacrifices will bring them shame.

The Prophet here again denounces on both a common punishment, as neither was free from guilt. As the people, he says, so shall be the priest; that is “I will spare neither the one nor the other; for the priest has abused the honor conferred on him; for though divinely appointed over the Church for this purpose, to preserve the people in piety and holy life, he has yet broken through and violated every right principle: and then the people themselves wished to have such teachers, that is, such as were mute. I will therefore now” the Lord says, “inflict punishment on them all alike. As the people then, so shall the priest be.”

Some go farther, and say, that it means that God would rob the priests of their honor, that they might differ nothing from the people; which is indeed true: but then they think that the Prophet threatens not others as well as the priests; which is not true. For though God, when he punishes the priests and the people for the contempt of his law, blots out the honor of the priesthood, and so abolishes it as to produce an equality between the great and the despised; yet the Prophet declares here, no doubt, that God would become the vindicator of his law against other sinners as well as against the priests. This subject expands wider than what they mean. The rest we must defer till to-morrow.