King Jeroboam asked for advice. Then he made two golden calves. “It is too long a journey for you to go to Jerusalem to worship,” he said to the people. “Israel, here are your gods who brought you out of Egypt.”
So the Lord God All-Powerful, the Mighty One of Israel, says: “You, my enemies, will not cause me any more trouble. I will pay you back for what you did.
Jerusalem, you have left me,” says the Lord. “You keep going farther and farther away, so I have taken hold of you and destroyed you. I was tired of holding back my anger.
“I will soon send for many fishermen to come to this land,” says the Lord. “And they will catch the people of Judah. After that, I will send for many hunters to come to this land. And they will hunt the people of Judah on every mountain and hill and in the cracks of the rocks.
‘Here is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: You have weapons of war in your hands to defend yourselves against the king of Babylon and the Babylonians, who are all around the city wall. But I will make those weapons useless. Soon I will bring them into the center of this city.
So I will gather all your lovers with whom you found pleasure. Yes, I will gather all those you loved and those you hated. I will gather them against you from all around, and I will strip you naked in front of them so they can see your nakedness.
Then my anger will come to an end. I will use it up against them, and then I will be satisfied. Then they will know that I, the Lord, have spoken. After I have carried out my anger against them, they will know how strongly I felt.
“Israel, you have sinned since the time of Gibeah, and the people there have continued sinning. But war will surely overwhelm them in Gibeah, because of the evil they have done there.
“Put the trumpet to your lips and give the warning! The enemy swoops down on the Lord’s people like an eagle. The Israelites have broken my agreement and have turned against my teachings.
Although Israel is mixed among the nations, I will gather them together. They will become weaker and weaker as they suffer under the great king of Assyria.
Just as the Lord was once happy with you and gave you good things and made you grow in number, so then the Lord will be happy to ruin and destroy you, and you will be removed from the land you are entering to take as your own.