In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria. And he placed them in Halah, and in Habor by the river Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
When its branches are dried up, they shall be broken off; the women come and set them on fire; for it is a people of no understanding. Therefore His Maker will not have mercy on them, and He who formed them will not favor them.
For behold, the Lord, Jehovah of Hosts, takes away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread and the whole stay of water,
And none thinks within his heart, nor is there knowledge nor understanding to say, I have burned part of it in the fire; yea, also I have baked bread on the coals of it; I have roasted flesh and eaten; and shall I make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I fall down to the stock of a tree?
Then you shall say in your heart, Who has borne me these, since I am bereaved, and desolate, turned aside and an exile, and who has brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; these, where were they?
So the Lord Jehovah says, Behold, My servants will eat, but you will be hungry. Behold, My servants will drink, but you will be thirsty. Behold, My servants will rejoice, but you will be ashamed.
If I go out into the field, then I see those killed with the sword! And if I enter into the city, then, behold, sicknesses of famine! Yes, both the prophet and the priest have gone up into a land that they do not know.
And their nobles have sent their little ones to the waters; they came to the cisterns, and found no water. They returned with their vessels empty; they were ashamed and confounded, and covered their heads.
Yea, the stork in the heavens knows her seasons; and the turtle and the crane and the swallow watch the time of their coming; but my people do not know the judgment of Jehovah.
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you from being priest to Me. Since you have forgotten the Law of your God, I will also forget your sons, even I.
For this is hidden from them by their willing it, that the heavens were of old, and the earth out of the water, and through water, being held together by the Word of God,