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God Accuses Israel

4Hear the word of the Lord, O people of Israel;
   for the Lord has an indictment against the inhabitants of the land.
There is no faithfulness or loyalty,
   and no knowledge of God in the land.
² Swearing, lying, and murder,
   and stealing and adultery break out;
   bloodshed follows bloodshed.
³ Therefore the land mourns,
   and all who live in it languish;
together with the wild animals
   and the birds of the air,
   even the fish of the sea are perishing.

⁴ Yet let no one contend,
   and let none accuse,
   for with you is my contention, O priest.^*
5 You shall stumble by day;
   the prophet also shall stumble with you by night,
   and I will destroy your mother.
⁶ My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge;
   because you have rejected knowledge,
   I reject you from being a priest to me.
And since you have forgotten the law of your God,
   I also will forget your children.

⁷ The more they increased,
   the more they sinned against me;
   they changed^* their glory into shame.
⁸ They feed on the sin of my people;
   they are greedy for their iniquity.
⁹ And it shall be like people, like priest;
   I will punish them for their ways,
   and repay them for their deeds.
¹⁰ They shall eat, but not be satisfied;
   they shall play the whore, but not multiply;
because they have forsaken the Lord
   to devote themselves to ¹¹whoredom.

The Idolatry of Israel

Wine and new wine
   take away the understanding.
¹² My people consult a piece of wood,
   and their divining-rod gives them oracles.
For a spirit of whoredom has led them astray,
   and they have played the whore, forsaking their God.
¹³ They sacrifice on the tops of the mountains,
   and make offerings upon the hills,
under oak, poplar, and terebinth,
   because their shade is good.

Therefore your daughters play the whore,
   and your daughters-in-law commit adultery.
¹⁴ I will not punish your daughters when they play the whore,
   nor your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery;
for the men themselves go aside with whores,
   and sacrifice with temple prostitutes;
thus a people without understanding comes to ruin.

¹⁵ Though you play the whore, O Israel,
   do not let Judah become guilty.
Do not enter into Gilgal,
   or go up to Beth-aven,
   and do not swear, ‘As the Lord lives.’
¹⁶ Like a stubborn heifer,
   Israel is stubborn;
can the Lord now feed them
   like a lamb in a broad pasture?

¹⁷ Ephraim is joined to idols—
   let him alone.
¹⁸ When their drinking is ended, they indulge in sexual orgies;
   they love lewdness more than their glory.^*
19 A wind has wrapped them^* in its wings,
   and they shall be ashamed because of their altars.^*

Impending Judgement on Israel and Judah

5Hear this, O priests!
   Give heed, O house of Israel!
Listen, O house of the king!
   For the judgement pertains to you;
for you have been a snare at Mizpah,
   and a net spread upon Tabor,
² and a pit dug deep in Shittim;^*
   but I will punish all of them.

³ I know Ephraim,
   and Israel is not hidden from me;
for now, O Ephraim, you have played the whore;
   Israel is defiled.
⁴ Their deeds do not permit them
   to return to their God.
For the spirit of whoredom is within them,
   and they do not know the Lord.

⁵ Israel’s pride testifies against him;
   Ephraim^* stumbles in his guilt;
   Judah also stumbles with them.
⁶ With their flocks and herds they shall go
   to seek the Lord,
but they will not find him;
   he has withdrawn from them.
⁷ They have dealt faithlessly with the Lord;
   for they have borne illegitimate children.
   Now the new moon shall devour them along with their fields.

⁸ Blow the horn in Gibeah,
   the trumpet in Ramah.
Sound the alarm at Beth-aven;
   look behind you, Benjamin!
⁹ Ephraim shall become a desolation
   on the day of punishment;
among the tribes of Israel
   I declare what is sure.
¹⁰ The princes of Judah have become
   like those who remove the landmark;
on them I will pour out
   my wrath like water.
¹¹ Ephraim is oppressed, crushed in judgement,
   because he was determined to go after vanity.^*
12 Therefore I am like maggots to Ephraim,
   and like rottenness to the house of Judah.
¹³ When Ephraim saw his sickness,
   and Judah his wound,
then Ephraim went to Assyria,
   and sent to the great king.^*
But he is not able to cure you
   or heal your wound.
¹⁴ For I will be like a lion to Ephraim,
   and like a young lion to the house of Judah.
I myself will tear and go away;
   I will carry off, and no one shall rescue.
¹⁵ I will return again to my place
   until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face.
   In their distress they will beg my favour:

Psalm 100

All Lands Summoned to Praise God

A Psalm of thanksgiving.
¹ Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth.
²   Worship the Lord with gladness;
   come into his presence with singing.

³ Know that the Lord is God.
   It is he that made us, and we are his;^*
   we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

⁴ Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
   and his courts with praise.
   Give thanks to him, bless his name.

⁵ For the Lord is good;
   his steadfast love endures for ever,
   and his faithfulness to all generations.

The Visit of the Wise Men

2In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men^* from the East came to Jerusalem, ²asking, ‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising,^* and have come to pay him homage.’ ³When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; ⁴and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah^* was to be born. ⁵They told him, ‘In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:
⁶ “And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
   are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
   who is to shepherd^* my people Israel.” ’

7 Then Herod secretly called for the wise men^* and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. ⁸Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, ‘Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.’ ⁹When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising,^* until it stopped over the place where the child was. ¹⁰When they saw that the star had stopped,^* they were overwhelmed with joy. ¹¹On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure-chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. ¹²And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

The Escape to Egypt

13 Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.’ ¹⁴Then Joseph^* got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, ¹⁵and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I have called my son.’

The Massacre of the Infants

16 When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men,^* he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men.^{* 17}Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:
¹⁸ ‘A voice was heard in Ramah,
   wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
   she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.’

The Return from Egypt

19 When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, ²⁰‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.’ ²¹Then Joseph^* got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. ²²But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. ²³There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, ‘He will be called a Nazorean.’