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Israel’s Apostasy

8Set the trumpet to your lips!
   One like a vulture^* is over the house of the Lord,
because they have broken my covenant,
   and transgressed my law.
² Israel cries to me,
   ‘My God, we—Israel—know you!’
³ Israel has spurned the good;
   the enemy shall pursue him.

⁴ They made kings, but not through me;
   they set up princes, but without my knowledge.
With their silver and gold they made idols
   for their own destruction.
⁵ Your calf is rejected, O Samaria.
   My anger burns against them.
How long will they be incapable of innocence?
⁶   For it is from Israel,
an artisan made it;
   it is not God.
The calf of Samaria
   shall be broken to pieces.^*

⁷ For they sow the wind,
   and they shall reap the whirlwind.
The standing grain has no heads,
   it shall yield no meal;
if it were to yield,
   foreigners would devour it.
⁸ Israel is swallowed up;
   now they are among the nations
   as a useless vessel.
⁹ For they have gone up to Assyria,
   a wild ass wandering alone;
   Ephraim has bargained for lovers.
¹⁰ Though they bargain with the nations,
   I will now gather them up.
They shall soon writhe
   under the burden of kings and princes.

¹¹ When Ephraim multiplied altars to expiate sin,
   they became to him altars for sinning.
¹² Though I write for him the multitude of my instructions,
   they are regarded as a strange thing.
¹³ Though they offer choice sacrifices,^*
   though they eat flesh,
   the Lord does not accept them.
Now he will remember their iniquity,
   and punish their sins;
   they shall return to Egypt.
¹⁴ Israel has forgotten his Maker,
   and built palaces;
and Judah has multiplied fortified cities;
   but I will send a fire upon his cities,
   and it shall devour his strongholds.