and might not be as their fathers— a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that didn’t make their hearts loyal, whose spirit was not steadfast with God.
He will surely wind you around and around, and throw you like a ball into a large country. There you will die, and there the chariots of your glory will be, you disgrace of your lord’s house.
He will give the rain for your seed, with which you will sow the ground; and bread of the increase of the ground will be rich and plentiful. In that day, your livestock will feed in large pastures.
Moreover, the LORD said to me in the days of Josiah the king, “Have you seen that which backsliding Israel has done? She has gone up on every high mountain and under every green tree, and has played the prostitute there.
I saw when, for this very cause, that backsliding Israel had committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a certificate of divorce, yet treacherous Judah, her sister, had no fear, but she also went and played the prostitute.
“I have surely heard Ephraim grieving thus, ‘You have chastised me, and I was chastised, as an untrained calf. Turn me, and I will be turned, for you are the LORD my God.
Therefore a lion out of the forest will kill them. A wolf of the evenings will destroy them. A leopard will watch against their cities. Everyone who goes out there will be torn in pieces, because their transgressions are many and their backsliding has increased.
But they didn’t listen or turn their ear, but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward.
Ephraim is a trained heifer that loves to thresh, so I will put a yoke on her beautiful neck. I will set a rider on Ephraim. Judah will plough. Jacob will break his clods.
“It grieves me that I have set up Saul to be king, for he has turned back from following me, and has not performed my commandments.” Samuel was angry; and he cried to the LORD all night.