In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported the Israelites to Assyria. He placed them in Halah and Habor, on the Gozan River, and in the towns of the Medes.
When the boughs are withered, they will be broken off. Women come and set them on fire, for it is a people of no understanding. Therefore their Maker will show them no mercy—He who formed them will give them no grace.
No one reflects in his heart, with no knowledge or discernment to say, “I burned half of it in the fire and I also baked bread on its coals. I roasted meat and ate—and then I make the rest of it an abomination? Should I bow before a block of wood?”
Then you will say in your heart, “Who has borne these for me? Wasn’t I bereaved of my children— barren, an exile and wandering? So who has raised these? Behold, I was left alone— these, where were they?”
Therefore thus says Adonai Elohim: “Behold, My servants will eat, while you will go hungry. Behold, My servants will drink, but you will be thirsty. Behold, My servants will rejoice, but you will be put to shame.
If I go out into the field, see, those slain by the sword! And if I enter into the city, see, the sick with famine! For both prophet and kohen will travel to a land they do not know.
Their nobles will send their lads for water. They come to the cisterns, but find no water. Their jars return empty. They are ashamed and humiliated; they cover their heads.
Even the stork in the sky knows her appointed times, and the turtledove, swallow and crane observe the time of their migration, but My people do not know the judgments of Adonai.
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Since you rejected knowledge, I will also reject you from being My kohen. Since you forgot the Torah of your God, just so I will forget your children.
And they will smash you to the ground—you and your children within you. And they won’t leave within you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”
For in holding to this idea, it escapes their notice that the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God.