“Hear this, you priests!
Pay attention, you leaders of Israel!
Listen, all of you among the royal household!
You are responsible for administering justice,
but you have led the people into idolatry
by setting a trap at Mizpah
and spreading a net over Mount Tabor.
You have dug a deep ditch of sexual immorality,
and so, I will punish you all.
“Israel, you cannot hide from me;
for I know Ephraim through and through.
Yet you have been unfaithful to me.
Israel’s worship of me is grossly defiled.
They no longer even know me, YAHWEH.
Their evil deeds block the way for them to return to me, their God,
because they are possessed by a spirit of prostitution.
Israel’s own arrogance speaks for itself.
Israel and Ephraim have no one else to blame,
for their own guilt makes them stumble.
Judah will be dragged down with them.
No matter how many animals they bring
to offer as sacrifices to YAHWEH,
they will not find him,
for he has withdrawn himself from them.
They have been proven unfaithful to YAHWEH,
having fathered illegitimate children.
Now, before the new moon festival,
they and their fields will be devoured.”
“Sound the shofar in Gibeah, blow the trumpet in Ramah,
and raise the war cry at Bethel:
‘On your guard, men of Benjamin!’
When the day of reckoning comes, Ephraim will be overthrown.
For I have pronounced certain doom on the tribes of Israel.”
“I am angry with the leaders of Judah,
for they came into the Northern Kingdom and stole their land.
I will pour my wrath out on them like a flood.
Ephraim is oppressed, crushed by the verdict,
for having deliberately chased a lie.
Because of this, I will be like a maggot in the wound of Ephraim
and like gangrene for the people of Judah.
Once Ephraim realized that he was sick
and that Judah had an ulcer,
Ephraim then turned to Assyria for help
and sent messengers to the great king,
but he has no power to cure you
or to heal your wound.
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