Israel’s sins and coming punishment

¹Hear the LORD ’s word,

for the LORD has a dispute

There’s no faithful love or loyalty,

²Swearing, lying, murder,

³Therefore, the earth itself becomes sick,

⁴Yet let no one protest,

Listen, priest, I am angry with your people.

⁵You will stumble by day;

⁶My people are destroyed

Since you have rejected knowledge,

Since you have forgotten the Instruction of your God,

⁷The more they increased,

⁸They feed on the sin of my people;

⁹The priest will be just like the people;

I will punish them for their ways,

¹⁰They will eat but not be satisfied;

they will have sex like prostitutes,

because they have rejected the LORD

Description of Israel’s idolatry

Wine and new wine

¹²My people take advice from a piece of wood,

and their divining rod gives them predictions.

¹³They offer sacrifices on mountaintops,

they offer sacrifices under various green trees,

Therefore, your daughters act like prostitutes,

¹⁴I will not punish your daughters because they act like prostitutes,

for the men themselves visit prostitutes,

so now the people without sense must come to ruin.

¹⁵Israel, even though you act like a prostitute,

Don’t enter into Gilgal,

¹⁶Like a stubborn cow Israel is stubborn.

Now the LORD will tend them,

¹⁷Ephraim is associated with idols—

¹⁸Though they have stopped drinking,

¹⁹The wind has wrapped her in its wings;