God’s Case against His People

1Hear the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel: for the Lord has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land.

2Cursing, and lying, and murder, and theft, and adultery abound in the land, and they mingle blood with blood.

3Therefore shall the land mourn, and shall be diminished with all that dwell in it, with the wild beasts of the field, and the reptiles of the earth, and with the birds of the sky, and the fish of the sea shall fail:

4that neither any one may plead, nor any one reprove another; but my people are as a priest spoken against.

5Therefore they shall fall by day, and the prophet with thee shall fall: I have compared thy mother unto night.

6My people are like as if they had no knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt not minister as priest to me: and as thou has forgotten the law of thy God, I also will forget thy children.

7According to their multitude, so they sinned against me: I will turn their glory into shame.

8They will devour the sins of my people, and will set their hearts on their iniquities.

9And the priest shall be as the people: and I will avenge on them their ways, and I will recompense to them their counsels.

10And they shall eat, and shall not be satisfied: they have gone a-whoring, and shall by no means prosper: because they have left off to take heed to the Lord.

11The heart of my people has gladly engaged in fornication and wine and strong drink.

12They asked counsel by means of signs, and they reported answer to them by their staves: they have gone astray in a spirit of whoredom, and gone grievously a-whoring from their God.

13They have sacrificed on the tops of the mountains, and on the hills they have sacrificed under the oak and poplar, and under the shady tree, because the shade was good: therefore your daughters shall go a-whoring, and your daughters-in-law shall commit adultery.

14And I will not visit upon your daughters when they shall commit fornication, nor your daughters-in-law when they shall commit adultery: for they themselves mingled themselves with harlots, and sacrificed with polluted ones, and the people that understood not entangled itself with a harlot.

15But thou, O Israel, be not ignorant, and go ye not, men of Juda, to Galgala; and go not up to the house of On, and swear not by the living Lord.

16For Israel was maddened like a mad heifer: now the Lord will feed them as a lamb in a wide place.

17Ephraim, joined with idols, has laid stumbling-blocks in his own way.

18He has chosen the Chananites: they have grievously gone a-whoring: they have loved dishonour through her insolence.

19Thou art a blast of wind in her wings, and they shall be ashamed because of their altars.