The Priests Are a Snare

5 Hear this, O priests!

Give heed, O house of Israel!

Listen, O house of the king!

Because the judgment applies to you;

because you have been a snare for Mizpah,

and a net spread out on Tabor;

2 they dug a deep pita in Shittim,

but I am a punishment for all of them.

3 I myself know Ephraim,

and Israel is not hidden from me;

because now you have played the whore, O Ephraim—

Israel is defiled.

4 Their deeds do not permit them

to return them to God.

Because a spirit of whoredom is in their midst,

they do not know Yahweh.

5 The pride of Israel testifies ⌊against him⌋,b

and Israel and Ephraim stumble in their guilt,

and Judah stumbles with them.

6 With their flocksc and herdsd they will go

to seek Yahweh, but they will not find him;

he has withdrawn from them.

7 They have dealt faithlessly with Yahweh

because they have borne illegitimate children.

Now the new moon will devour them with their fields.

8 Blow the ⌊horn⌋e in Gibeah,

the trumpet in Ramah.

Sound the alarm in Beth-aven;

look behind you, Benjamin.

9 Ephraim will be a desolation

in the day of punishment;

among the tribes of Israel

I will reveal what is true.

10 The princes of Judah have become

like those who remove a landmark;

on them I will pour out

my wrath like water.

11 Ephraim is oppressed,

crushed in judgment,

because he was determined

to go after filth.f

12 But I am like a maggot to Ephraim

and like rottenness to the house of Judah.

13 And when Ephraim saw his illness,

and Judah his wound,

Ephraim went to Assyria,

he sent to the great king.g

But he was unable to cure you

and heal your wound.

14 Because I will be like a lion to Ephraim

and like a fierce strong lion to the house of Judah.

I myself will tear and I will go;

I will carry off, and there is no one who delivers.

15 ⌊I will return again⌋h to my place

until they acknowledge their guilt

and seek my face;

in their distress they will searchi me.