Chapter 6

Israel Unrepentant

1 “Come, let us return to the Lord.

He has torn us to pieces

but he will heal us;

he has injured us

but he will bind up our wounds.

2 After two days he will revive us;

on the third day he will restore us,

that we may live in his presence.

3 Let us acknowledge the Lord;

let us press on to acknowledge him.

As surely as the sun rises,

he will appear;

he will come to us like the winter rains,

like the spring rains that water the earth.”

4 “What can I do with you, Ephraim?

What can I do with you, Judah?

Your love is like the morning mist,

like the early dew that disappears.

5 Therefore I cut you in pieces with my prophets,

I killed you with the words of my mouth—

then my judgments go forth like the sun.

6 For I desire mercy, not sacrifice,

and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.

7 As at Adam, they have broken the covenant;

they were unfaithful to me there.

8 Gilead is a city of evildoers,

stained with footprints of blood.

9 As marauders lie in ambush for a victim,

so do bands of priests;

they murder on the road to Shechem,

carrying out their wicked schemes.

10 I have seen a horrible thing in Israel:

There Ephraim is given to prostitution,

Israel is defiled.

11 “Also for you, Judah,

a harvest is appointed.

“Whenever I would restore the fortunes of my people,

Chapter 7

1 whenever I would heal Israel,

the sins of Ephraim are exposed

and the crimes of Samaria revealed.

They practice deceit,

thieves break into houses,

bandits rob in the streets;

2 but they do not realize

that I remember all their evil deeds.

Their sins engulf them;

they are always before me.

3 “They delight the king with their wickedness,

the princes with their lies.

4 They are all adulterers,

burning like an oven

whose fire the baker need not stir

from the kneading of the dough till it rises.

5 On the day of the festival of our king

the princes become inflamed with wine,

and he joins hands with the mockers.

6 Their hearts are like an oven;

they approach him with intrigue.

Their passion smolders all night;

in the morning it blazes like a flaming fire.

7 All of them are hot as an oven;

they devour their rulers.

All their kings fall,

and none of them calls on me.

8 “Ephraim mixes with the nations;

Ephraim is a flat loaf not turned over.

9 Foreigners sap his strength,

but he does not realize it.

His hair is sprinkled with gray,

but he does not notice.

10 Israel’s arrogance testifies against him,

but despite all this

he does not return to the Lord his God

or search for him.

11 “Ephraim is like a dove,

easily deceived and senseless—

now calling to Egypt,

now turning to Assyria.

12 When they go, I will throw my net over them;

I will pull them down like the birds in the sky.

When I hear them flocking together,

I will catch them.

13 Woe to them,

because they have strayed from me!

Destruction to them,

because they have rebelled against me!

I long to redeem them

but they speak about me falsely.

14 They do not cry out to me from their hearts

but wail on their beds.

They slash themselves, appealing to their gods

for grain and new wine,

but they turn away from me.

15 I trained them and strengthened their arms,

but they plot evil against me.

16 They do not turn to the Most High;

they are like a faulty bow.

Their leaders will fall by the sword

because of their insolent words.

For this they will be ridiculed

in the land of Egypt.

Chapter 8

Israel to Reap the Whirlwind

1 “Put the trumpet to your lips!

An eagle is over the house of the Lord

because the people have broken my covenant

and rebelled against my law.

2 Israel cries out to me,

‘Our God, we acknowledge you!’

3 But Israel has rejected what is good;

an enemy will pursue him.

4 They set up kings without my consent;

they choose princes without my approval.

With their silver and gold

they make idols for themselves

to their own destruction.

5 Samaria, throw out your calf-idol!

My anger burns against them.

How long will they be incapable of purity?

6 They are from Israel!

This calf—a metalworker has made it;

it is not God.

It will be broken in pieces,

that calf of Samaria.

7 “They sow the wind

and reap the whirlwind.

The stalk has no head;

it will produce no flour.

Were it to yield grain,

foreigners would swallow it up.

8 Israel is swallowed up;

now she is among the nations

like something no one wants.

9 For they have gone up to Assyria

like a wild donkey wandering alone.

Ephraim has sold herself to lovers.

10 Although they have sold themselves among the nations,

I will now gather them together.

They will begin to waste away

under the oppression of the mighty king.

11 “Though Ephraim built many altars for sin offerings,

these have become altars for sinning.

12 I wrote for them the many things of my law,

but they regarded them as something foreign.

13 Though they offer sacrifices as gifts to me,

and though they eat the meat,

the Lord is not pleased with them.

Now he will remember their wickedness

and punish their sins:

They will return to Egypt.

14 Israel has forgotten their Maker

and built palaces;

Judah has fortified many towns.

But I will send fire on their cities

that will consume their fortresses.”

Chapter 9

Punishment for Israel

1 Do not rejoice, Israel;

do not be jubilant like the other nations.

For you have been unfaithful to your God;

you love the wages of a prostitute

at every threshing floor.

2 Threshing floors and winepresses will not feed the people;

the new wine will fail them.

3 They will not remain in the Lord’s land;

Ephraim will return to Egypt

and eat unclean food in Assyria.

4 They will not pour out wine offerings to the Lord,

nor will their sacrifices please him.

Such sacrifices will be to them like the bread of mourners;

all who eat them will be unclean.

This food will be for themselves;

it will not come into the temple of the Lord.

5 What will you do on the day of your appointed festivals,

on the feast days of the Lord?

6 Even if they escape from destruction,

Egypt will gather them,

and Memphis will bury them.

Their treasures of silver will be taken over by briers,

and thorns will overrun their tents.

7 The days of punishment are coming,

the days of reckoning are at hand.

Let Israel know this.

Because your sins are so many

and your hostility so great,

the prophet is considered a fool,

the inspired person a maniac.

8 The prophet, along with my God,

is the watchman over Ephraim,

yet snares await him on all his paths,

and hostility in the house of his God.

9 They have sunk deep into corruption,

as in the days of Gibeah.

God will remember their wickedness

and punish them for their sins.

10 “When I found Israel,

it was like finding grapes in the desert;

when I saw your ancestors,

it was like seeing the early fruit on the fig tree.

But when they came to Baal Peor,

they consecrated themselves to that shameful idol

and became as vile as the thing they loved.

11 Ephraim’s glory will fly away like a bird—

no birth, no pregnancy, no conception.

12 Even if they rear children,

I will bereave them of every one.

Woe to them

when I turn away from them!

13 I have seen Ephraim, like Tyre,

planted in a pleasant place.

But Ephraim will bring out

their children to the slayer.”

14 Give them, Lord—

what will you give them?

Give them wombs that miscarry

and breasts that are dry.

15 “Because of all their wickedness in Gilgal,

I hated them there.

Because of their sinful deeds,

I will drive them out of my house.

I will no longer love them;

all their leaders are rebellious.

16 Ephraim is blighted,

their root is withered,

they yield no fruit.

Even if they bear children,

I will slay their cherished offspring.”

17 My God will reject them

because they have not obeyed him;

they will be wanderers among the nations.

Chapter 3

Jesus Greater Than Moses

1 Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, whom we acknowledge as our apostle and high priest. 2 He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house. 3 Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself.

4 For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. 5 “Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house,” bearing witness to what would be spoken by God in the future. 6 But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are his house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory.

Warning Against Unbelief

7 So, as the Holy Spirit says:

“Today, if you hear his voice,

8 do not harden your hearts

as you did in the rebellion,

during the time of testing in the wilderness,

9 where your ancestors tested and tried me,

though for forty years they saw what I did.

10 That is why I was angry with that generation;

I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray,

and they have not known my ways.’

11 So I declared on oath in my anger,

‘They shall never enter my rest.’ ”

12 See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. 14 We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end. 15 As has just been said:

“Today, if you hear his voice,

do not harden your hearts

as you did in the rebellion.”

16 Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? 17 And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies perished in the wilderness? 18 And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed? 19 So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.