A voice is heard upon the bare heights, the weeping [and] the supplications of the sons of Israel, because they have perverted their way; they have forgotten LORD their God.
They shall come with weeping. And I will lead them with supplications. I will cause them to walk by rivers of waters, in a straight way in which they shall not stumble. For I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.
Lift up thine eyes to the bare heights, and see. Where have thou not been lain with? By the ways thou have sat for them, as an Arabian in the wilderness, and thou have polluted the land with thy whoredoms and with thy wickedness.
For thou have forgotten the God of thy salvation, and have not been mindful of the rock of thy strength. Therefore thou plant pleasant plants, and set it with foreign slips.
They have gone up to Bayith, and to Dibon, to the high places, to weep. Moab wails over Nebo, and over Medeba. On all their heads is baldness. Every beard is cut off.
For Israel has forgotten his maker, and built palaces. And Judah has multiplied fortified cities. But I will send a fire upon his cities, and it shall devour the castles thereof.
And the agent of LORD said to him, Why have thou smitten thy donkey these three times? Behold, I have come forth as an adversary, because thy way is perverse before me.
And of whom have thou been afraid and in fear, that thou lie, and have not remembered me, nor laid it to thy heart? Have I not held my peace even of long time, and thou do not fear me?
Cut off thy hair, [O Jerusalem], and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on the bare heights. For LORD has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.
Destroyers have come upon all the bare heights in the wilderness. For the sword of LORD devours from the one end of the land even to the other end of the land. No flesh has peace.
For my people have forgotten me. They have burned incense to FALSE [gods]. And they have been made to stumble in their ways, in the ancient paths, to walk in bypaths, in a way not cast up,