The people from Samaria worship the calves at Beth Aven. They will cry. The priests will cry, because their beautiful idol is gone. It was carried away.
He will curse you, and you will not have many children. He will curse your land, and you will not have good crops. He will curse your animals, and they will not have many babies. He will curse your calves and lambs.
The time is coming when people will say, ‘The women who cannot have babies are the ones God has blessed. It’s really a blessing that they have no children to care for.’
This is what the Lord says: “I will definitely punish the Ammonites for the many crimes they did. They killed the pregnant women in Gilead. The Ammonites did this so that they could take that land and make their country larger.
A man might live a long time and have 100 children. But if he is not satisfied with those good things, and if no one remembers him after his death, I say that a baby who dies at birth is better off than that man.
Joseph is like a powerful bull. His two sons are like bull’s horns. They will attack other people and push them to the ends of the earth! Yes, Manasseh has thousands of people, and Ephraim has ten thousands.”
She will hide and give birth to a baby. And she will eat the baby and everything that comes out of her body with it. All these bad things will happen when your enemy comes to surround your cities and make you suffer.
The fort cities of Ephraim will be destroyed. The government in Damascus will be finished. Those left in Aram will lose everything, just like the people of Israel,” says the Lord All-Powerful.