When it was reported to the house of David saying: “Aram is camped in Ephraim,” his heart as well as the heart of his people shook like the trees of the forest shaking with the wind.
But when all Israel saw that the king did not listen to them, the people answered the king saying: “What share have we in David? No inheritance in Jesse’s son! To your tents, O Israel! Now look at your own house, David!” So the Israelites departed to their tents.
He cried out against the altar with the word of Adonai and said: “O altar, altar, thus says Adonai, behold, a son shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name, and upon you will he sacrifice the priests of the high places who burn incense on you, and human bones will be burned upon you.’”
So, Amaziah dismissed the troops who had come to him from Ephraim to go back to their homes. Their anger burned greatly against Judah and they returned home in a rage.
Then some of the leaders of the sons of Ephraim—Azariah son of Jehohanan, Berechiah son of Meshillemoth, Jehizkiah son of Shallum, and Amasa son of Hadlai—confronted those coming from the campaign,
Their inhabitants are weak handed, shattered and ashamed. They are like the grass of the field and green herb, like grass on roofs, scorched before it is grown up.
Though a tenth still be in it, it will again be burned. As a terebinth tree or as an oak whose stump remains when cut down, so the holy seed will be the stump.”
Adonai will bring—on you, on your people and on your father’s house such days as have never come since the day Ephraim separated from Judah—the king of Assyria!
O house of David, thus says Adonai: “Render justice by morning, and rescue the one who is robbed out of the hand of the oppressor. Otherwise My fury will go forth like fire and burn so none can extinguish it, because of their evil deeds.”