Punishment Coming for Israel and Judah

5 vHear this, O priests!

Pay attention, O house of Israel!

Give ear, O house of the king!

For the judgment is for you;

for wyou have been a snare at Mizpah

and a net spread upon xTabor.

2  And ythe revolters zhave gone deep into slaughter,

but aI will discipline all of them.

3  bI know Ephraim,

and Israel is not hidden from me;

for now, O Ephraim, you have played the whore;

Israel is defiled.

4  cTheir deeds do not permit them

to return to their God.

For dthe spirit of whoredom is within them,

and they know not the Lord.

5  eThe pride of Israel testifies to his face;1

Israel and fEphraim shall stumble in his guilt;

fJudah also shall stumble with them.

6  gWith their flocks and herds they shall go

to seek the Lord,

gbut they will not find him;

hhe has withdrawn from them.

7  iThey have dealt faithlessly with the Lord;

for they have borne alien children.

Now the new moon shall devour them with their fields.

8  jBlow the horn in kGibeah,

the trumpet in lRamah.

Sound the alarm at mBeth-aven;

we follow you,2 O Benjamin!

9  Ephraim shall become a desolation

in the day of punishment;

among the tribes of Israel

I make known what is sure.

10  The princes of Judah have become

like nthose who move the landmark;

upon them I will pour out

my wrath like water.

11  Ephraim is ooppressed, crushed in judgment,

because he was determined to go after filth.3

12  But I am plike a moth to Ephraim,

and plike dry rot to the house of Judah.

13  When Ephraim saw his sickness,

and Judah qhis wound,

then Ephraim went rto Assyria,

and sent to the great king.4

sBut he is not able to cure you

or heal qyour wound.

14  For I will be tlike a lion to uEphraim,

and like a young lion to the house of uJudah.

vI, even I, will tear and go away;

I will carry off, and no one shall rescue.

15  wI will return again to my place,

until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face,

and xin their distress earnestly seek me.