4They have set up kings, but not by Me;
         They have appointed princes, but I did not know it.
         With their silver and gold they have made idols for themselves,
         That they might be cut off.

5He has rejected your calf, O Samaria, saying,
         “My anger burns against them!”
         How long will they be incapable of innocence?

6For from Israel is even this!
         A craftsman made it, so it is not God;
         Surely the calf of Samaria will be broken to pieces.

7For they sow the wind
         And they reap the whirlwind.
         The standing grain has no heads;
         It yields no grain.
         Should it yield, strangers would swallow it up.

8Israel is swallowed up;
         They are now among the nations
         Like a vessel in which no one delights.

9For they have gone up to Assyria,
         Like a wild donkey all alone;
         Ephraim has hired lovers.

10Even though they hire allies among the nations,
         Now I will gather them up;
         And they will begin to diminish
         Because of the burden of the king of princes.

11Since Ephraim has multiplied altars for sin,
         They have become altars of sinning for him.

12Though I wrote for him ten thousand precepts of My law,
         They are regarded as a strange thing.

13As for My sacrificial gifts,
         They sacrifice the flesh and eat it,
         But the LORD has taken no delight in them.
         Now He will remember their iniquity,
         And punish them for their sins;
         They will return to Egypt.

14For Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces;
         And Judah has multiplied fortified cities,
         But I will send a fire on its cities that it may consume its palatial dwellings.

NASB ©1995

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