Listen to the Lord’s lawsuit, you mountains and enduring foundations of the earth, because the Lord has a case against his people, and he will argue it against Israel.
Hear the word of the Lord, people of Israel, for the Lord has a case against the inhabitants of the land: There is no truth, no faithful love, and no knowledge of God in the land!
I will send him against a godless nation; I will command him to go against a people destined for my rage, to take spoils, to plunder, and to trample them down like clay in the streets.
Though they offer sacrificial gifts , and eat the flesh, the Lord does not accept them. Now he will remember their guilt and punish their sins; they will return to Egypt.
And I will punish her for the days of the Baals, to which she burned incense. She put on her rings and her jewellery and followed her lovers, but she forgot me. This is the Lord’s declaration.
The tumult reaches to the ends of the earth because the Lord brings a case against the nations. He enters into judgement with all humanity. As for the wicked, he hands them over to the sword – this is the Lord’s declaration.
But when the Lord finishes all his work against Mount Zion and Jerusalem, he will say, ‘I will punish the king of Assyria for his arrogant acts and the proud look in his eyes.’
All their evil appears at Gilgal, for there I began to hate them. I will drive them from my house because of their evil, wicked actions. I will no longer love them; all their leaders are rebellious.
The Lord says: I will not relent from punishing Judah for three crimes, even four, because they have rejected the instruction of the Lord and have not kept his statutes. The lies that their ancestors followed have led them astray.
But the king of Assyria caught Hoshea in a conspiracy: He had sent envoys to So king of Egypt and had not paid tribute to the king of Assyria as in previous years. Therefore the king of Assyria arrested him and put him in prison.
A pronouncement concerning the animals of the Negev: Through a land of trouble and distress, of lioness and lion, of viper and flying serpent, they carry their wealth on the backs of donkeys and their treasures on the humps of camels, to a people who will not help them.
when I heal Israel, the iniquity of Ephraim and the crimes of Samaria will be exposed. For they practise fraud; a thief breaks in; a raiding party pillages outside.
Even though they hire lovers among the nations, I will now round them up, and they will begin to decrease in number under the burden of the king and leaders.