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Punishment for Israel’s Sin

Do not rejoice, O Israel!

Do not exult as other nations do;

for you have played the whore, departing from your God.

You have loved a prostitute’s pay

on all threshing floors.

Threshing floor and wine vat shall not feed them,

and the new wine shall fail them.

They shall not remain in the land of the L ord;

but Ephraim shall return to Egypt,

and in Assyria they shall eat unclean food.

They shall not pour drink offerings of wine to the L ord,

and their sacrifices shall not please him.

Such sacrifices shall be like mourners’ bread;

all who eat of it shall be defiled;

for their bread shall be for their hunger only;

it shall not come to the house of the L ord.

What will you do on the day of appointed festival,

and on the day of the festival of the L ord?

For even if they escape destruction,

Egypt shall gather them,

Memphis shall bury them.

Nettles shall possess their precious things of silver;

thorns shall be in their tents.

The days of punishment have come,

the days of recompense have come;

Israel cries,

“The prophet is a fool,

the man of the spirit is mad!”

Because of your great iniquity,

your hostility is great.

The prophet is a sentinel for my God over Ephraim,

yet a fowler’s snare is on all his ways,

and hostility in the house of his God.

They have deeply corrupted themselves

as in the days of Gibeah;

he will remember their iniquity,

he will punish their sins.

Like grapes in the wilderness,

I found Israel.

Like the first fruit on the fig tree,

in its first season,

I saw your ancestors.

But they came to Baal-peor,

and consecrated themselves to a thing of shame,

and became detestable like the thing they loved.

Ephraim’s glory shall fly away like a bird—

no birth, no pregnancy, no conception!

Even if they bring up children,

I will bereave them until no one is left.

Woe to them indeed

when I depart from them!

Once I saw Ephraim as a young palm planted in a lovely meadow,

but now Ephraim must lead out his children for slaughter.

Give them, O L ord—

what will you give?

Give them a miscarrying womb

and dry breasts.

Every evil of theirs began at Gilgal;

there I came to hate them.

Because of the wickedness of their deeds

I will drive them out of my house.

I will love them no more;

all their officials are rebels.

Ephraim is stricken,

their root is dried up,

they shall bear no fruit.

Even though they give birth,

I will kill the cherished offspring of their womb.

Because they have not listened to him,

my God will reject them;

they shall become wanderers among the nations.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

He then adds, Though they shall bring up children, I will yet exterminate them, so that they shall not be men, or, before they grow up, as some expound the words. The meaning is, that though Ephraim then flattered himself, yet a dreadful ruin was at hand, which would extinguish the whole seed, so that there would be nothing remaining. But lest they should think that all was over, when the Lord had inflicted on them one punishment, he lays down three gradations; that God would slay them first in the birth, then extinguish them in the womb, and, lastly, before conception; but if he spared them, so that they would raise up children, it would yet be without advantage, inasmuch as God would take away the youths in the flower of their age. Thus, then he threatens entire destruction to the kingdom of Israel.

And, lastly, he closes the verse in these words, And surely woe will be to them when I shall depart from them The Prophet means by these words, that men become miserable and accursed, when they alienate themselves from God, and when God takes away from them his favour. After having mentioned especially the vengeance of Godwhich was at hand, he says here that the cause and occasion of all evils would be, that God would depart from them, inasmuch as they had previously renounced their faith in him. But we must bear in mind the reason why the Prophet added this clause, and that is, because wicked men dream, that though God be displeased, things will yet go on prosperously with them: for they neither ascribe adversities to the wrath of God, nor acknowledge the fountain of all blessings to be God’s free and paternal favour. As then profane men do not understand this truth, however much God may proclaim that he is an enemy to them, that he is armed to destroy them, they care nothing, but promise to themselves a prosperous fortune: until they feel the hand of God and the signs of destruction appear, they continue still secure. This is the reason why the Prophet says, that there is woe to men when God departs from them. Forasmuch, then, as Scripture teaches everywhere that every desirable thing comes and flows to us from the mere grace of God and his paternal favour, so the Prophet declares in this place, that men are miserable and accursed when God is angry with them. But it follows —