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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   he has withdrawn from them.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: