The Apostasy of Israel

¹Set the trumpet to your mouth!

One like an eagle is on the house of the Lord ,

because they have transgressed My covenant

and rebelled against My law.

²Israel cries to Me,

“My God, we know You.”

³Israel has cast off the good;

the enemy will pursue him.

⁴They set up kings, but not through Me;

they made princes, but I did not know it.

With their silver and gold,

they made idols,

so that they will be cut off.

⁵Your calf, O Samaria, is rejected![#Hos 10:5]

My anger is kindled against them.

How long will they be incapable of innocence?

⁶For it is from Israel;

a craftsman made it,

and it is not God!

The calf of Samaria

will be broken to pieces.

⁷For they sow the wind,

and they will reap the whirlwind.

The standing grain has no head

and will yield no flour.

If it were to yield,

foreigners would swallow it up.

⁸Israel is swallowed up.[#Jer 51:34]

Now they are among the nations

as a vessel in which there is no pleasure.

⁹For they have gone up to Assyria

like a wild donkey alone by itself;

Ephraim has hired lovers.

¹⁰Though they hire among the nations,

I will now gather them.

They will begin to diminish due to the burden

of the king of princes.

¹¹Because Ephraim has multiplied altars for sin,

they have become to him altars for sinning.

¹²I have written for him the great things of My law,[#Hos 4:6]

but they were regarded as a strange thing.

¹³For the sacrifices of My offerings,

they sacrifice flesh and eat it;

but the Lord does not accept them.

Now He will remember their iniquity

and punish their sins.

They will return to Egypt.

¹⁴Israel has forgotten his maker[#Dt 32:18]

and built temples,

and Judah has multiplied fortified cities;

so I will send a fire upon his cities,

and it will devour his palaces.