The pride of Israel testifies to his face; Israel and Ephraim shall stumble in his guilt; Judah also shall stumble with them.
The pride of Israel testifies to his face; yet they do not return to the Lord their God, nor seek him, for all this.
“Fallen, no more to rise, is the virgin Israel; forsaken on her land, with none to raise her up.”
You have gone the way of your sister; therefore I will give her cup into your hand. Thus says the Lord God: “You shall drink your sister's cup that is deep and large; you shall be laughed at and held in derision, for it contains much; you will be filled with drunkenness and sorrow. A cup of horror and desolation, the cup of your sister Samaria; you shall drink it and drain it out, and gnaw its shards, and tear your breasts; for I have spoken, declares the Lord God. Therefore thus says the Lord God: Because you have forgotten me and cast me behind your back, you yourself must bear the consequences of your lewdness and whoring.”
He said to him, ‘I will condemn you with your own words, you wicked servant! You knew that I was a severe man, taking what I did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow?
Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets.
Thus says the Lord: “For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because they have rejected the law of the Lord, and have not kept his statutes, but their lies have led them astray, those after which their fathers walked. So I will send a fire upon Judah, and it shall devour the strongholds of Jerusalem.”
Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity.
For Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces, and Judah has multiplied fortified cities; so I will send a fire upon his cities, and it shall devour her strongholds.
For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, and like a young lion to the house of Judah. I, even I, will tear and go away; I will carry off, and no one shall rescue.
You shall stumble by day; the prophet also shall stumble with you by night; and I will destroy your mother.
“Though our iniquities testify against us, act, O Lord, for your name's sake; for our backslidings are many; we have sinned against you.
For our transgressions are multiplied before you, and our sins testify against us; for our transgressions are with us, and we know our iniquities:
All who fashion idols are nothing, and the things they delight in do not profit. Their witnesses neither see nor know, that they may be put to shame.
Ah, the proud crown of the drunkards of Ephraim, and the fading flower of its glorious beauty, which is on the head of the rich valley of those overcome with wine! Behold, the Lord has one who is mighty and strong; like a storm of hail, a destroying tempest, like a storm of mighty, overflowing waters, he casts down to the earth with his hand. The proud crown of the drunkards of Ephraim will be trodden underfoot;
and all the people will know, Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria, who say in pride and in arrogance of heart: “The bricks have fallen, but we will build with dressed stones; the sycamores have been cut down, but we will put cedars in their place.”
For the look on their faces bears witness against them; they proclaim their sin like Sodom; they do not hide it. Woe to them! For they have brought evil on themselves.
There are those—how lofty are their eyes, how high their eyelids lift!
for the righteous falls seven times and rises again, but the wicked stumble in times of calamity.
The wicked is overthrown through his evildoing, but the righteous finds refuge in his death.
Be assured, an evil person will not go unpunished, but the offspring of the righteous will be delivered.
The righteousness of the blameless keeps his way straight, but the wicked falls by his own wickedness.
Judah also did not keep the commandments of the Lord their God, but walked in the customs that Israel had introduced. And the Lord rejected all the descendants of Israel and afflicted them and gave them into the hand of plunderers, until he had cast them out of his sight.
Unless otherwise indicated, all content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Contact me: openbibleinfo (at) gmail.com.