My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will reject you from serving as my priest. Since you have forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your sons.
When its branches dry out, they will be broken off. Women will come and make fires with them, for they are not a people with understanding. Therefore their Maker will not have compassion on them, and their Creator will not be gracious to them.
Your land is desolate, your cities burned down; foreigners devour your fields right in front of you – a desolation, like a place demolished by foreigners.
If I go out to the field, look #– #those slain by the sword! If I enter the city, look #– #those ill from famine! For both prophet and priest travel to a land they do not know.
Their nobles send their servants for water. They go to the cisterns; they find no water; their containers return empty. They are ashamed and humiliated; they cover their heads.
Even storks in the sky know their seasons. Turtledoves, swallows, and cranes are aware of their migration, but my people do not know the requirements of the Lord.
They will crush you and your children among you to the ground, and they will not leave one stone on another in your midst, because you did not recognise the time when God visited you.’
In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria. He deported the Israelites to Assyria and settled them in Halah, along the Habor (Gozan’s river), and in the cities of the Medes.
No one comes to his senses; no one has the perception or insight to say, ‘I burned half of it in the fire, I also baked bread on its coals, I roasted meat and ate. Should I make something detestable with the rest of it? Should I bow down to a block of wood? ’
Then you will say within yourself, “Who fathered these for me? I was deprived of my children and unable to conceive, exiled and wandering – but who brought them up? See, I was left by myself – but these, where did they come from? ” ’
Therefore, this is what the Lord God says: ‘Look! My servants will eat, but you will be hungry. Look! My servants will drink, but you will be thirsty. Look! My servants will rejoice, but you will be put to shame.