In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Ashur took Shomron, and carried Yisra'el away to Ashur, and placed them in Chalach, and on the Chavor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Madai.
Your country is desolate. Your cities are burned with fire. Strangers devour your land in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.
When its boughs are withered, they will be broken off. The women will come and set them on fire, for they are a people of no understanding. Therefore he who made them will not have compassion on them, and he who formed them will show them no favor.
For, behold, the Lord, the LORD of Armies, takes away from Yerushalayim and from Yehudah supply and support, the whole supply of bread, and the whole supply of water;
None calls to mind, neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say, I have burned part of it in the fire; yes, also I have baked bread on the coals of it; I have roasted flesh and eaten it: and shall I make the residue of it an abomination? shall I fall down to the stock of a tree?
Then shall you say in your heart, Who has conceived these for me, seeing I have been bereaved of my children, and am solitary, an exile, and wandering back and forth? and who has brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; these, where were they?
Therefore thus says the Lord GOD, Behold, my servants shall eat, but you shall be hungry; behold, my servants shall drink, but you shall be thirsty; behold, my servants shall rejoice, but you shall be disappointed;
If I go forth into the field, then, behold, the slain with the sword! and if I enter into the city, then, behold, those who are sick with famine! for both the prophet and the Kohen go about in the land, and have no knowledge.
Their nobles send their little ones to the waters: they come to the cisterns, and find no water; they return with their vessels empty; they are disappointed and confounded, and cover their heads.
Yes, the khasidah in the sky knows her appointed times; and the turtledove and the swallow and the crane observe the time of their coming; but my people don't know the LORD's law.
Those who are killed with the sword are better than those who are killed with hunger; For these pine away, stricken through, for want of the fruits of the field.
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you, that you may be no Kohen to me. Because you have forgotten your God's law, I will also forget your children.
and will dash you and your children within you to the ground. They will not leave in you one stone on another, because you didn't know the time of your visitation.*