Hosea 10:15

but they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and scoffed at his prophets, until Yahweh’s wrath arose against his people, until there was no remedy.

Let Samaria throw out his calf idol! My anger burns against them! How long will it be until they are capable of purity?

Hear this, you elders, And listen, all you inhabitants of the land. Has this ever happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers?

Neither shall there be any work for Egypt, which head or tail, palm branch or rush, may do.

A prophet watches over Ephraim with my God. A fowler’s snare is on all of his paths, and hostility in the house of his God.

As for Ephraim, their glory will fly away like a bird. There will be no birth, no one with child, and no conception.

He shall reckon with him who bought him from the year that he sold himself to him to the Year of Jubilee. The price of his sale shall be according to the number of years; he shall be with him according to the time of a hired servant.

In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah, Hoshea the son of Elah began to reign in Samaria over Israel for nine years.

He got rid of the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places in the cities of Judah, and in the places around Jerusalem; those also who burned incense to Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the army of the sky.

“But now those who are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I considered unworthy to put with my sheep dogs.

For the Lord said to me, “Within a year, as a worker bound by contract would count it, all the glory of Kedar will fail,

“Though you, Israel, play the prostitute, yet don’t let Judah offend; and don’t come to Gilgal, neither go up to Beth Aven, nor swear, ‘As Yahweh lives.’

“Blow the cornet in Gibeah, and the trumpet in Ramah! Sound a battle cry at Beth Aven, behind you, Benjamin!

As gangs of robbers wait to ambush a man, so the company of priests murder on the path toward Shechem, committing shameful crimes.

They are all hot as an oven, and devour their judges. All their kings have fallen. There is no one among them who calls to me.

Don’t rejoice, Israel, to jubilation like the nations; for you were unfaithful to your God. You love the wages of a prostitute at every grain threshing floor.

The inhabitants of Samaria will be in terror for the calves of Beth Aven; for its people will mourn over it, Along with its priests who rejoiced over it, for its glory, because it has departed from it.

I will stretch out my hand against Judah, and against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem. I will cut off the remnant of Baal from this place: the name of the idolatrous and pagan priests,

Therefore in one day her plagues will come: death, mourning, and famine; and she will be utterly burned with fire; for the Lord God who has judged her is strong.

She sent and called Barak the son of Abinoam out of Kedesh Naphtali, and said to him, “Hasn’t Yahweh, the God of Israel, commanded, ‘Go and lead the way to Mount Tabor, and take with you ten thousand men of the children of Naphtali and of the children of Zebulun?

But if you keep doing evil, you will be consumed, both you and your king.”

Amaziah his son, Azariah his son, Jotham his son,

Even young children despise me. If I arise, they speak against me.

He will spread out his hands in the middle of it, like one who swims spreads out hands to swim, but his pride will be humbled together with the craft of his hands.

The praise of Moab is no more. In Heshbon they have devised evil against her: ‘Come! Let’s cut her off from being a nation.’ You also, Madmen, will be brought to silence. The sword will pursue you.

Hear Yahweh’s word, you children of Israel; for Yahweh has a charge against the inhabitants of the land: “Indeed there is no truth, nor goodness, nor knowledge of God in the land.

Samaria and her king float away, like a twig on the water.

The high places also of Aven, the sin of Israel, will be destroyed. The thorn and the thistle will come up on their altars. They will tell the mountains, “Cover us!” and the hills, “Fall on us!”

Now they sin more and more, and have made themselves molten images of their silver, even idols according to their own understanding, all of them the work of the craftsmen. They say of them, ‘They offer human sacrifice and kiss the calves.’

Where is your king now, that he may save you in all your cities? And your judges, of whom you said, ‘Give me a king and princes?’

I have given you a king in my anger, and have taken him away in my wrath.

I said, “Please listen, you heads of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel: Isn’t it for you to know justice?

“A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If I am a father, then where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is the respect due me? Says Yahweh of Armies to you, priests, who despise my name. You say, ‘How have we despised your name?’

By chance a certain priest was going down that way. When he saw him, he passed by on the other side.

But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed.

To him therefore who knows to do good, and doesn’t do it, to him it is sin.

Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, mocking.

He received what they handed him, fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made it a molded calf. Then they said, “These are your gods, Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt.”

“If a man’s hair has fallen from his head, he is bald. He is clean.

Their border on the north quarter was from the Jordan. The border went up to the side of Jericho on the north, and went up through the hill country westward. It ended at the wilderness of Beth Aven.

The Philistines assembled themselves together to fight with Israel, thirty thousand chariots, and six thousand horsemen, and people as the sand which is on the seashore in multitude. They came up and encamped in Michmash, eastward of Beth Aven.

He went up from there to Bethel. As he was going up by the way, some youths came out of the city and mocked him, and said to him, “Go up, you baldy! Go up, you baldy!”

However, Jehu didn’t depart from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, with which he made Israel to sin, the golden calves that were in Bethel and that were in Dan.

Shallum the son of Jabesh conspired against him, and struck him before the people, and killed him, and reigned in his place.

Pekah the son of Remaliah, his captain, conspired against him and attacked him in Samaria, in the fortress of the king’s house, with Argob and Arieh; and with him were fifty men of the Gileadites. He killed him, and reigned in his place.

Hoshea the son of Elah made a conspiracy against Pekah the son of Remaliah, attacked him, killed him, and reigned in his place, in the twentieth year of Jotham the son of Uzziah.

In the seventeenth year of Pekah the son of Remaliah, Ahaz the son of Jotham king of Judah began to reign.

At that time king Ahaz sent to the kings of Assyria to help him.

Even a child makes himself known by his doings, whether his work is pure, and whether it is right.

Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.

Folly is bound up in the heart of a child: the rod of discipline drives it far from him.

Therefore remove sorrow from your heart, and put away evil from your flesh; for youth and the dawn of life are vanity.

The people will be oppressed, everyone by another, and everyone by his neighbor. The child will behave himself proudly against the old man, and the wicked against the honorable.

For before the child knows to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land whose two kings you abhor shall be forsaken.

“Because this people has refused the waters of Shiloah that go softly, and rejoice in Rezin and Remaliah’s son;

Therefore Yahweh will cut off from Israel head and tail, palm branch and reed, in one day.

The light of Israel will be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame; and it will burn and devour his thorns and his briers in one day.

But now Yahweh has spoken, saying, “Within three years, as a worker bound by contract would count them, the glory of Moab shall be brought into contempt, with all his great multitude; and the remnant will be very small and feeble.”

“It will happen in that day that the glory of Jacob will be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh will become lean.

The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead the dough, to make cakes to the queen of the sky, and to pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.

Fire has gone out of its branches. It has devoured its fruit, so that there is in it no strong branch to be a scepter to rule.’ This is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation.”

Because they ministered to them before their idols, and became a stumbling block of iniquity to the house of Israel. Therefore I have lifted up my hand against them,” says the Lord Yahweh, “and they will bear their iniquity.

As they were multiplied, so they sinned against me. I will change their glory into shame.

“Listen to this, you priests! Listen, house of Israel, and give ear, house of the king! For the judgment is against you; for you have been a snare at Mizpah, and a net spread on Tabor.

Gilead is a city of those who work iniquity; it is stained with blood.

When I would heal Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim is uncovered, also the wickedness of Samaria; for they commit falsehood, and the thief enters in, and the gang of robbers ravages outside.

Israel is swallowed up. Now they are among the nations like a worthless thing.

Surely now they will say, “We have no king; for we don’t fear Yahweh; and the king, what can he do for us?”

Therefore they will be like the morning mist, and like the dew that passes away early, like the chaff that is driven with the whirlwind out of the threshing floor, and like the smoke out of the chimney.

Hear this word that Yahweh has spoken against you, children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up out of the land of Egypt, saying:

Yahweh says: “As the shepherd rescues out of the mouth of the lion two legs, or a piece of an ear, so shall the children of Israel be rescued who sit in Samaria on the corner of a couch, and on the silken cushions of a bed.”

but don’t seek Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and don’t pass to Beersheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nothing.

“For, behold, Yahweh commands, and the great house will be smashed to pieces, and the little house into bits.

Therefore Yahweh says: ‘Your wife shall be a prostitute in the city, and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be divided by line; and you yourself shall die in a land that is unclean, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of his land.’ ”

Please listen to this, you heads of the house of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel, who abhor justice, and pervert all equity.

Now why do you cry out aloud? Is there no king in you? Has your counselor perished, that pains have taken hold of you as of a woman in travail?

“Now, you priests, this commandment is for you.

But the chief priests stirred up the multitude, that he should release Barabbas to them instead.

Did then that which is good become death to me? May it never be! But sin, that it might be shown to be sin, was producing death in me through that which is good; that through the commandment sin might become exceedingly sinful.

But as then, he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now.

Others were tried by mocking and scourging, yes, moreover by bonds and imprisonment.

standing far away for the fear of her torment, saying, ‘Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the strong city! For your judgment has come in one hour.’

For in an hour such great riches are made desolate.’ Every ship master, and everyone who sails anywhere, and mariners, and as many as gain their living by sea, stood far away,