The Response to God’s Rebuke

1 “aCome, let us return to the Lord.

For bHe has torn us, but cHe will heal us;

He has 1wounded us, but He will dbandage us.

2 “He will arevive us after two days;

He will braise us up on the third day,

That we may live before Him.

3 “So let us aknow, let us press on to know the Lord.

His bgoing forth is as certain as the dawn;

And He will come to us like the crain,

Like the spring rain watering the earth.”

4 What shall I do with you, O aEphraim?

What shall I do with you, O Judah?

For your 1loyalty is like a bmorning cloud

And like the dew which goes away early.

5 Therefore I have ahewn them in pieces by the prophets;

I have slain them by the bwords of My mouth;

And the judgments on you are like the light that goes forth.

6 For aI delight in loyalty brather than sacrifice,

And in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

7 But alike 1Adam they have btransgressed the covenant;

There they have cdealt treacherously against Me.

8 aGilead is a city of wrongdoers,

Tracked with bbloody footprints.

9 And as araiders wait for a man,

So a band of priests bmurder on the way to Shechem;

Surely they have committed 1ccrime.

10 In the house of Israel I have seen a ahorrible thing;

Ephraim’s bharlotry is there, Israel has defiled itself.

11 Also, O Judah, there is a aharvest appointed for you,

When I brestore the fortunes of My people.