8
The Israelis will be punished because of their wrong decisions
1 Yahweh said to me, “Blow [MTY] your trumpet
to warn the people!
My people have rejected the agreement that I made with them,
and they have rebelled against obeying my laws.
Therefore, their enemies are swooping down on my people’s country like [SIM] an eagle.
2 My Israeli people cry out to me,
‘Our God, we know that you are our God!’
3 But because the Israeli people have rejected what is good,
their enemies will pursue them.
4 The Israel people appointed their last three kings,
but they did not ask me if I agreed to what they were doing.
They chose their own leaders
without asking if I would approve of them.
They used their own silver and gold to make for themselves idols,
and doing that led them to be destroyed.
5 You people of Samaria, throw away your idol that resembles a calf!
I am extremely angry with you people!
How long [RHQ] will you do things that cause you to be unacceptable to me?
6 Someone in Israel made that idol for you;
but I am God and it is not.
So that idol of a calf in Samaria must be smashed to pieces.
7 The foolish thing that the people of Israel have done is like [MET] trying to plant wind;
but what they harvest will be like [MET] a whirlwind.
So the grain that they planted will have no heads on the stalks,
and as a result there will be no grain from which to make flour.
And if it did produce good grain,
foreigners would come and steal it.
8 The people of Israel will be defeated [MET] by their enemies;
they will be scattered among other nations and become worthless.
9 Like [MET] donkeys that are looking for mates,
they have requested help from Assyria;
they paid money to the leaders of Assyria
in order to persuade those leaders to protect them.
10 But although they have agreed to pay money each year to the leaders of those countries,
I will soon gather them together to punish them.
The great King of Assyria will cause them to suffer greatly.
11 Although the people of Israel built many altars to present offerings to their idols to take away their guilt for sinning,
those altars have become places where they commit more sins.
12 I wrote many laws for them,
but they disregarded them, saying that they did not have to obey them because they were different from laws that they had known previously.
13 They offer sacrifices to me,
and they eat some of the meat of those sacrifices, which is what I permitted them to do.
But I, Yahweh, am not pleased with those sacrifices.
I remember the evil things that they have done,
and I will punish them for the sins that they have committed:
I will force them to go to other countries
and become slaves like they were [MET] in Egypt.
14 The people of Israel have abandoned/forgotten me, the one who created their nation;
they have built palaces,
and the people of Judah have built walls around many towns.
But I will send a fire
that will destroy all their cities and their fortresses.”