Bible in 90 Days

9 It was now the first year of the reign of King Darius, the son of Ahasuerus. (Darius was a Mede but became king of the Chaldeans.) ² In that first year of his reign, I, Daniel, learned from the book of Jeremiah the prophet that Jerusalem must lie desolate for seventy years.^{[a] 3} So I earnestly pleaded with the Lord God to end our captivity and send us back to our own land.^[b]

As I prayed, I fasted and wore rough sackcloth, and I sprinkled myself with ashes ⁴ and confessed my sins and those of my people.

“O Lord,” I prayed, “you are a great and awesome God; you always fulfill your promises of mercy to those who love you and keep your laws. ⁵ But we have sinned so much; we have rebelled against you and scorned your commands. ⁶ We have refused to listen to your servants the prophets, whom you sent again and again down through the years, with your messages to our kings and princes and to all the people.

⁷ “O Lord, you are righteous; but as for us, we are always shamefaced with sin, just as you see us now; yes, all of us—the men of Judah, the people of Jerusalem, and all Israel, scattered near and far wherever you have driven us because of our disloyalty to you. ⁸ O Lord, we and our kings and princes and fathers are weighted down with shame because of all our sins.

⁹ “But the Lord our God is merciful and pardons even those who have rebelled against him.

¹⁰ “O Lord our God, we have disobeyed you; we have flouted all the laws you gave us through your servants, the prophets. ¹¹ All Israel has disobeyed; we have turned away from you and haven’t listened to your voice. And so the awesome curse of God has crushed us—the curse written in the law of Moses your servant. ¹² And you have done exactly as you warned us you would do, for never in all history has there been a disaster like what happened at Jerusalem to us and our rulers. ¹³ Every curse against us written in the law of Moses has come true; all the evils he predicted—all have come. But even so we still refuse to satisfy the Lord our God by turning from our sins and doing right.

¹⁴ “And so the Lord deliberately crushed us with the calamity he prepared; he is fair in everything he does, but we would not obey. ¹⁵ O Lord our God, you brought lasting honor to your name by removing your people from Egypt in a great display of power. Lord, do it again! Though we have sinned so much and are full of wickedness, ¹⁶ yet because of all your faithful mercies, Lord, please turn away your furious anger from Jerusalem, your own city, your holy mountain. For the heathen mock at you because your city lies in ruins for our sins.

¹⁷ “O our God, hear your servant’s prayer! Listen as I plead! Let your face shine again with peace and joy upon your desolate sanctuary—for your own glory, Lord.

¹⁸ “O my God, bend down your ear and listen to my plea. Open your eyes and see our wretchedness, how your city lies in ruins—for everyone knows that it is yours. We don’t ask because we merit help, but because you are so merciful despite our grievous sins.

¹⁹ “O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive. O Lord, listen to me and act! Don’t delay—for your own sake, O my God, because your people and your city bear your name.”

²⁰ Even while I was praying and confessing my sin and the sins of my people, desperately pleading with the Lord my God for Jerusalem, his holy mountain, ²¹ Gabriel, whom I had seen in the earlier vision, flew swiftly to me at the time of the evening sacrifice ²² and said to me, “Daniel, I am here to help you understand God’s plans. ²³ The moment you began praying a command was given. I am here to tell you what it was, for God loves you very much. Listen and try to understand the meaning of the vision that you saw!

²⁴ “The Lord has commanded 490 years^[c] of further punishment upon Jerusalem and your people. Then at last they will learn to stay away from sin, and their guilt will be cleansed; then the kingdom of everlasting righteousness will begin, and the Most Holy Place in the Temple will be rededicated, as the prophets have declared. ²⁵ Now listen! It will be 49 years plus 434 years^[d] from the time the command is given to rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One comes! Jerusalem’s streets and walls will be rebuilt despite the perilous times.

²⁶ “After this period of 434 years, the Anointed One will be killed, his kingdom still unrealized . . . and a king will arise whose armies will destroy the city and the Temple. They will be overwhelmed as with a flood, and war and its miseries are decreed from that time to the very end. ²⁷ This king will make a seven-year treaty with the people, but after half that time, he will break his pledge and stop the Jews from all their sacrifices and their offerings; then, as a climax to all his terrible deeds, the Enemy shall utterly defile the sanctuary of God. But in God’s time and plan, his judgment will be poured out upon this Evil One.”

10 In the third year of the reign of Cyrus, king of Persia, Daniel (also called Belteshazzar) had another vision. It concerned events certain to happen in the future: times of great tribulation—wars and sorrows, and this time he understood what the vision meant.

² When this vision came to me (Daniel said later), I had been in mourning for three full weeks. ³ All that time I tasted neither wine nor meat, and, of course, I went without desserts. I neither washed nor shaved nor combed my hair.

⁴ Then one day early in April, as I was standing beside the great Tigris River, ^5-6 I looked up, and suddenly there before me stood a person robed in linen garments, with a belt of purest gold around his waist and glowing, lustrous skin! From his face came blinding flashes like lightning, and his eyes were pools of fire; his arms and feet shone like polished brass, and his voice was like the roaring of a vast multitude of people.

⁷ I, Daniel, alone saw this great vision; the men with me saw nothing, but they were suddenly filled with unreasoning terror and ran to hide, ⁸ so I was left alone. When I saw this frightening vision, my strength left me, and I grew pale and weak with fright.

⁹ Then he spoke to me, and I fell to the ground face downward in a deep faint. ¹⁰ But a hand touched me and lifted me, still trembling, to my hands and knees. ¹¹ And I heard his voice—“O Daniel, greatly beloved of God,” he said, “stand up and listen carefully to what I have to say to you, for God has sent me to you.” So I stood up, still trembling with fear.

¹² Then he said, “Don’t be frightened, Daniel, for your request has been heard in heaven and was answered the very first day you began to fast before the Lord and pray for understanding; that very day I was sent here to meet you. ¹³ But for twenty-one days the mighty Evil Spirit^[e] who overrules the kingdom of Persia blocked my way. Then Michael, one of the top officers of the heavenly army, came to help me, so that I was able to break through these spirit rulers of Persia. ¹⁴ Now I am here to tell you what will happen to your people, the Jews, at the end times—for the fulfillment of this prophecy is many years away.”

¹⁵ All this time I was looking down, unable to speak a word. ¹⁶ Then someone—he looked like a man—touched my lips and I could talk again, and I said to the messenger from heaven, “Sir, I am terrified by your appearance and have no strength. ¹⁷ How can such a person as I even talk to you? For my strength is gone, and I can hardly breathe.”

¹⁸ Then the one who seemed to be a man touched me again, and I felt my strength returning. ¹⁹ “God loves you very much,” he said; “don’t be afraid! Calm yourself; be strong—yes, strong!”

Suddenly, as he spoke these words, I felt stronger and said to him, “Now you can go ahead and speak, sir, for you have strengthened me.”

^20-21 He replied, “Do you know why I have come? I am here to tell you what is written in the ‘Book of the Future.’ Then, when I leave, I will go again to fight my way back, past the prince of Persia; and after him, the prince of Greece. Only Michael, the angel who guards your people Israel,^[f] will be there to help me.

11 “I was the one sent to strengthen and help Darius the Mede in the first year of his reign. ² But now I will show you what the future holds. Three more Persian kings will reign, to be succeeded by a fourth,^[g] far richer than the others. Using his wealth for political advantage, he will plan total war against Greece.

³ “Then a mighty king will rise in Greece, a king who will rule a vast kingdom and accomplish everything he sets out to do.^{[h] 4} But at the zenith of his power, his kingdom will break apart and be divided into four weaker nations, not even ruled by his sons. For his empire will be torn apart and given to others. ⁵ One of them, the king of Egypt,^[i] will increase in power, but this king’s own officials will rebel against him and take away his kingdom and make it still more powerful.

⁶ “Several years later an alliance will be formed between the king of Syria^[j] and the king of Egypt. The daughter of the king of Egypt will be given in marriage to the king of Syria as a gesture of peace, but she will lose her influence over him, and not only will her hopes be blighted, but those of her father, the king of Egypt, and of her ambassador and child. ⁷ But when her brother^[k] takes over as king of Egypt, he will raise an army against the king of Syria and march against him and defeat him. ⁸ When he returns again to Egypt, he will carry back their idols with him, along with priceless gold and silver dishes; and for many years afterward he will leave the Syrian king alone.

⁹ “Meanwhile, the king of Syria^[l] will invade Egypt briefly but will soon return again to his own land. ^10-11 However, the sons of this Syrian king will assemble a mighty army that will overflow across Israel into Egypt, to a fortress there. Then the king of Egypt,^[m] in great anger, will rally against the vast forces of Syria and defeat them. ¹² Filled with pride after this great victory, he will have many thousands of his enemies killed, but his success will be short-lived.

¹³ “A few years later the Syrian king^[n] will return with a fully equipped army far greater than the one he lost, ¹⁴ and other nations will join him in a crusade against Egypt. Insurgents among your own people, the Jews, will join them, thus fulfilling prophecy,^[o] but they will not succeed. ¹⁵ Then the Syrian king and his allies will come and lay siege to a fortified city of Egypt and capture it, and the proud armies of Egypt will go down to defeat.

¹⁶ “The Syrian king will march onward unopposed; none will be able to stop him. And he will also enter ‘The Glorious Land’ of Israel and pillage it. ¹⁷ This will be his plot for conquering all Egypt: he, too, will form an alliance with the Egyptian king, giving him a daughter in marriage, so that she can work for him from within. But the plan will fail.

¹⁸ “After this he will turn his attention to the coastal cities and conquer many. But a general will stop him and cause him to retreat in shame. ¹⁹ He will turn homeward again but will have trouble on the way and disappear.

²⁰ “His successor^[p] will be remembered as the king who sent a tax collector into Israel, but after a very brief reign, he will die mysteriously, though neither in battle nor in riot.

²¹ “Next to come to power will be an evil man not directly in line for royal succession.^[q] But during a crisis he will take over the kingdom by flattery and intrigue. ²² Then all opposition will be swept away before him, including a leader of the priests.^{[r] 23} His promises will be worthless. From the first his method will be deceit; with a mere handful of followers, he will become strong. ²⁴ He will enter the richest areas of the land without warning and do something never done before: he will take the property and wealth of the rich and scatter it out among the people. With great success he will besiege and capture powerful strongholds throughout his dominions, but this will last for only a short while. ²⁵ Then he will stir up his courage and raise a great army against Egypt; and Egypt, too, will raise a mighty army, but to no avail, for plots against him will succeed.

²⁶ “Those of his own household will bring his downfall; his army will desert, and many will be killed.

²⁷ “Both these kings^[s] will be plotting against each other at the conference table, attempting to deceive each other. But it will make no difference, for neither can succeed until God’s appointed time has come.

²⁸ “The Syrian king will then return home with great riches, first marching through Israel and destroying it. ²⁹ Then at the predestined time he will once again turn his armies southward, as he had threatened, but now it will be a very different story from those first two occasions. ^30-31 For Roman warships^[t] will scare him off, and he will withdraw and return home. Angered by having to retreat, the Syrian king will again pillage Jerusalem and pollute the sanctuary, putting a stop to the daily sacrifices, and worshiping idols inside the Temple. He will leave godless Jews in power when he leaves—men who have abandoned their fathers’ faith. ³² He will flatter those who hate the things of God^[u] and win them over to his side. But the people who know their God shall be strong and do great things.

³³ “Those with spiritual understanding will have a wide ministry of teaching in those days. But they will be in constant danger, many of them dying by fire and sword, or being jailed and robbed. ³⁴ Eventually these pressures will subside, and some ungodly men will come, pretending to offer a helping hand, only to take advantage of them.

³⁵ “And some who are most gifted in the things of God will stumble in those days and fall, but this will only refine and cleanse them and make them pure until the final end of all their trials, at God’s appointed time.

³⁶ “The king will do exactly as he pleases, claiming to be greater than every god there is, even blaspheming the God of gods, and prospering—until his time is up. For God’s plans are unshakable. ³⁷ He will have no regard for the gods of his fathers, nor for the god beloved of women,^[v] nor any other god, for he will boast that he is greater than them all. ³⁸ Instead of these, he will worship the Fortress god^[w]—a god his fathers never knew—and lavish on him costly gifts! ³⁹ Claiming this god’s help, he will have great success against the strongest fortresses. He will honor those who submit to him, appointing them to positions of authority and dividing the land to them as their reward.

⁴⁰ “Then at the time of the end,^[x] the king of the south will attack him again, and the northern king will react with the strength and fury of a whirlwind; his vast army and navy will rush out to bury him with their might. ⁴¹ He will invade various lands on the way, including Israel, the Pleasant Land, and overthrow the governments of many nations. Moab, Edom, and most of Ammon will escape, ⁴² but Egypt and many other lands will be occupied. ⁴³ He will capture all the treasures of Egypt, and the Libyans and Ethiopians shall be his servants.

⁴⁴ “But then news from the east and north will alarm him, and he will return in great anger to destroy as he goes. ⁴⁵ He will halt between Jerusalem and the sea and there pitch his royal tents, but while he is there his time will suddenly run out, and there will be no one to help him.

12 “At that time Michael, the mighty angelic prince who stands guard over your nation, will stand up and fight for you in heaven against satanic forces,^[y] and there will be a time of anguish for the Jews greater than any previous suffering in Jewish history. And yet every one of your people whose names are written in the Book will endure it.

² “And many of those whose bodies lie dead and buried will rise up, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

³ “And those who are wise—the people of God—shall shine as brightly as the sun’s brilliance, and those who turn many to righteousness will glitter like stars forever.

⁴ “But Daniel, keep this prophecy a secret; seal it up so that it will not be understood until the end times, when travel and education shall be vastly increased!”

⁵ Then I, Daniel, looked and saw two men^[z] on each bank of a river. ⁶ And one of them asked the man in linen robes who was standing now above the river, “How long will it be until all these terrors end?”

⁷ He replied, with both hands lifted to heaven, taking oath by him who lives forever and ever, that they will not end until three and a half years after the power of God’s people has been crushed.^[aa]

⁸ I heard what he said, but I didn’t understand what he meant. So I said, “Sir, how will all this finally end?”

⁹ But he said, “Go now, Daniel, for what I have said is not to be understood until the time of the end. ¹⁰ Many shall be purified by great trials and persecutions. But the wicked shall continue in their wickedness, and none of them will understand. Only those who are willing to learn will know what it means.

¹¹ “From the time the daily sacrifice is taken away and the Horrible Thing is set up to be worshiped, there will be 1,290 days.^{[ab] 12} And blessed are those who wait and remain until the 1,335th day!

¹³ “But go on now to the end of your life and your rest; for you will rise again and have your full share of those last days.”^[ac]

1 These are the messages from the Lord to Hosea, son of Beeri, during the reigns of these four kings of Judah:

Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah; and one of the kings of Israel, Jeroboam, son of Joash.

² Here is the first message:

The Lord said to Hosea, “Go and marry a girl who is a prostitute, so that some of her children will be born to you from other men. This will illustrate the way my people have been untrue to me, committing open adultery against me by worshiping other gods.”

³ So Hosea married Gomer, daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.

^4-5 And the Lord said, “Name the child Jezreel, for in the valley of Jezreel I am about to punish King Jehu’s dynasty to avenge the murders he committed;^[ad] in fact, I will put an end to Israel as an independent kingdom, breaking the power of the nation in the valley of Jezreel.”

⁶ Soon Gomer had another child—this one a daughter. And God said to Hosea, “Name her Lo-ruhamah (meaning ‘No more mercy’) for I will have no more mercy upon Israel, to forgive her again. ⁷ But I will have mercy on the tribe of Judah. I will personally free her from her enemies without any help from her armies or her weapons.”^[ae]

⁸ After Gomer had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she again conceived and this time gave birth to a son. ⁹ And God said, “Call him Lo-ammi (meaning ‘Not mine’), for Israel is not mine and I am not her God.

¹⁰ “Yet the time will come when Israel shall prosper and become a great nation; in that day her people will be too numerous to count—like sand along a seashore! Then, instead of saying to them, ‘You are not my people,’ I will tell them, ‘You are my sons, children of the Living God.’ ¹¹ Then the people of Judah and Israel will unite and have one leader; they will return from exile together; what a day that will be—the day when God will sow his people in the fertile soil of their own land again.^[af]

2 “O Jezreel,^[ag] rename your brother and sister. Call your brother Ammi (which means ‘Now you are mine’); name your sister Ruhamah (‘Pitied’), for now God will have mercy upon her!

² “Plead with your mother, for she has become another man’s wife—I am no longer her husband. Beg her to stop her harlotry, to quit giving herself to others. ³ If she doesn’t, I will strip her as naked as the day she was born and cause her to waste away and die of thirst as in a land riddled with famine and drought. ⁴ And I will not give special favors to her children as I would to my own, for they are not my children; they belong to other men.

⁵ “For their mother has committed adultery. She did a shameful thing when she said, ‘I’ll run after other men and sell myself to them for food and drinks and clothes.’

⁶ “But I will fence her in with briars and thornbushes; I’ll block the road before her to make her lose her way, so that ⁷ when she runs after her lovers, she will not catch up with them. She will search for them but not find them. Then she will think, ‘I might as well return to my husband, for I was better off with him than I am now.’

⁸ “She doesn’t realize that all she has, has come from me. It was I who gave her all the gold and silver she used in worshiping Baal, her god!

⁹ “But now I will take back the wine and ripened corn I constantly supplied, and the clothes I gave her to cover her nakedness—I will no longer give her rich harvests of grain in its season or wine at the time of the grape harvest. ¹⁰ Now I will expose her nakedness in public for all her lovers to see, and no one will be able to rescue her from my hand.

¹¹ “I will put an end to all her joys, her parties, holidays, and feasts. ¹² I will destroy her vineyards and her orchards—gifts she claims her lovers gave her—and let them grow into a jungle; wild animals will eat their fruit.

¹³ “For all the incense she burned to Baal her idol and for the times when she put on her earrings and jewels and went out looking for her lovers and deserted me—for all these things I will punish her,” says the Lord.

¹⁴ “But I will court her again and bring her into the wilderness, and I will speak to her tenderly there. ¹⁵ There I will give back her vineyards to her and transform her Valley of Troubles into a Door of Hope. She will respond to me there, singing with joy as in days long ago in her youth after I had freed her from captivity in Egypt.

¹⁶ “In that coming day,” says the Lord, “she will call me ‘My Husband’ instead of ‘My Master.’^{[ah] 17} O Israel, I will cause you to forget your idols, and their names will not be spoken anymore.

¹⁸ “At that time I will make a treaty between you and the wild animals, birds, and snakes, not to fear each other anymore; and I will destroy all weapons, and all wars will end.

“Then you will lie down in peace and safety, unafraid; ¹⁹ and I will bind you to me forever with chains of righteousness and justice and love and mercy. ²⁰ I will betroth you to me in faithfulness and love, and you will really know me then as you never have before.

^21-22 “In that day,” says the Lord, “I will answer the pleading of the sky for clouds, to pour down water on the earth in answer to its cry for rain. Then the earth can answer the parched cry of the grain, the grapes, and the olive trees for moisture and for dew—and the whole grand chorus shall sing together that ‘God sows!’^[ai] He has given all!

²³ “At that time I will sow a crop of Israelites and raise them for myself! I will pity those who are ‘not pitied,’^[aj] and I will say to those who are ‘not my people,’ ‘Now you are my people’; and they will reply, ‘You are our God!’”

3 Then the Lord said to me, “Go, and get your wife again and bring her back to you and love her, even though she loves adultery. For the Lord still loves Israel though she has turned to other gods and offered them choice gifts.”

² So I bought her back from her slavery^[ak] for a couple of dollars and eight bushels of barley, ³ and I said to her, “You must live alone for many days; do not go out with other men nor be a prostitute, and I will wait for you.”

⁴ This illustrates the fact that Israel will be a long time without a king or prince, and without an altar, Temple, priests, or even idols!

⁵ Afterward they will return to the Lord their God and to the Messiah, their King,^[al] and they shall come trembling, submissive to the Lord and to his blessings in the end times.

4 Hear the word of the Lord, O people of Israel. The Lord has filed a lawsuit against you listing the following charges: “There is no faithfulness, no kindness, no knowledge of God in your land. ² You swear and lie and kill and steal and commit adultery. There is violence everywhere, with one murder after another.

³ “That is why your land is not producing; it is filled with sadness, and all living things grow sick and die; the animals, the birds, and even the fish begin to disappear.

⁴ “Don’t point your finger at someone else and try to pass the blame to him! Look, priest, I am pointing my finger at you. ⁵ As a sentence for your crimes, you priests will stumble in broad daylight as well as in the night, and so will your false ‘prophets’ too; and I will destroy your mother, Israel. ⁶ My people are destroyed because they don’t know me, and it is all your fault, you priests, for you yourselves refuse to know me; therefore, I refuse to recognize you as my priests. Since you have forgotten my laws, I will ‘forget’ to bless your children. ⁷ The more my people multiplied, the more they sinned against me. They exchanged the glory of God for the disgrace of idols.

⁸ “The priests rejoice in the sins of the people; they lap it up and lick their lips for more! ⁹ And thus it is: ‘Like priests, like people’—because the priests are wicked, the people are too. Therefore, I will punish both priests and people for all their wicked deeds. ¹⁰ They will eat and still be hungry. Though they do a big business as prostitutes, they shall have no children, for they have deserted me and turned to other gods.

¹¹ “Wine, women, and song have robbed my people of their brains. ¹² For they are asking a piece of wood to tell them what to do. ‘Divine Truth’ comes to them through tea leaves!^[am] Longing after idols has made them foolish. For they have played the harlot, serving other gods, deserting me. ¹³ They sacrifice to idols on the tops of mountains; they go up into the hills to burn incense in the pleasant shade of oaks and poplars and sumac trees.

“There your daughters turn to prostitution and your brides commit adultery. ¹⁴ But why should I punish them? For you men are doing the same thing, sinning with harlots and temple prostitutes. Fools! Your doom is sealed, for you refuse to understand.

¹⁵ “But though Israel is a prostitute, may Judah stay far from such a life. O Judah, do not join with those who insincerely worship me at Gilgal and at Bethel. Their worship is mere pretense. ¹⁶ Don’t be like Israel, stubborn as a heifer, resisting the Lord’s attempts to lead her in green pastures. ¹⁷ Stay away from her, for she is wedded to idolatry.

¹⁸ “The men of Israel finish up their drinking bouts, and off they go to find some whores. Their love for shame is greater than for honor.^[an]

¹⁹ “Therefore, a mighty wind shall sweep them away;^[ao] they shall die in shame because they sacrifice to idols.

5 “Listen to this, you priests and all of Israel’s leaders; listen, all you men of the royal family: You are doomed! For you have deluded the people with idols at Mizpah and Tabor ² and dug a deep pit to trap them at Acacia. But never forget—I will settle up with all of you for what you’ve done.

³ “I have seen your evil deeds: Israel, you have left me as a prostitute leaves her husband; you are utterly defiled. ⁴ Your deeds won’t let you come to God again, for the spirit of adultery is deep within you, and you cannot know the Lord.

⁵ “The very arrogance of Israel testifies against her in my court. She will stumble under her load of guilt, and Judah, too, shall fall. ⁶ Then at last, they will come with their flocks and herds to sacrifice to God, but it will be too late—they will not find him. He has withdrawn from them and they are left alone.

⁷ “For they have betrayed the honor of the Lord, bearing children that aren’t his. Suddenly they and all their wealth will disappear. ⁸ Sound the alarm! Warn with trumpet blasts in Gibeah and Ramah, and on over to Beth-aven; tremble, land of Benjamin! ⁹ Hear this announcement, Israel: When your day of punishment comes, you will become a heap of rubble.

¹⁰ “The leaders of Judah have become the lowest sort of thieves.^[ap] Therefore, I will pour my anger down upon them like a waterfall, ¹¹ and Ephraim will be crushed and broken by my sentence because she is determined to follow idols. ¹² I will destroy her as a moth does wool; I will sap away the strength of Judah like dry rot.

¹³ “When Ephraim and Judah see how sick they are, Ephraim will turn to Assyria, to the great king there, but he can neither help nor cure.

¹⁴ “I will tear Ephraim and Judah as a lion rips apart its prey; I will carry them off and chase all rescuers away.

¹⁵ “I will abandon them and return to my home until they admit their guilt and look to me for help again, for as soon as trouble comes, they will search for me and say:

6 “‘Come, let us return to the Lord; it is he who has torn us—he will heal us. He has wounded—he will bind us up. ² In just a couple of days,^[aq] or three at the most, he will set us on our feet again to live in his kindness! ³ Oh, that we might know the Lord! Let us press on to know him, and he will respond to us as surely as the coming of dawn or the rain of early spring.’”

⁴ “O Ephraim and Judah, what shall I do with you? For your love vanishes like morning clouds, and disappears like dew. ⁵ I sent my prophets to warn you of your doom; I have slain you with the words of my mouth, threatening you with death. Suddenly, without warning, my judgment will strike you as surely as day follows night.

⁶ “I don’t want your sacrifices—I want your love; I don’t want your offerings—I want you to know me.

⁷ “But like Adam, you broke my covenant; you refused my love. ⁸ Gilead is a city of sinners, tracked with footprints of blood. ⁹ Her citizens are gangs of robbers, lying in ambush for their victims; packs of priests murder along the road to Shechem and practice every kind of sin. ¹⁰ Yes, I have seen a horrible thing in Israel—Ephraim chasing other gods, Israel utterly defiled.

¹¹ “O Judah, for you also there is a plentiful harvest of punishment waiting—and I wanted so much to bless you!

7 “I wanted to forgive Israel, but her sins were far too great—no one can even live in Samaria without being a liar, thief, and bandit!

² “Her people never seem to recognize that I am watching them. Their sinful deeds give them away on every side; I see them all. ³ The king is glad about their wickedness; the princes laugh about their lies. ⁴ They are all adulterers; as a baker’s oven is constantly aflame—except after he kneads the dough and waits for it to rise again—so are these people constantly aflame with lust.

⁵ “On the king’s birthday, the princes get him drunk; he makes a fool of himself and drinks with those who mock him. ⁶ Their hearts blaze like a furnace with intrigue. Their plot smolders through the night, and in the morning it flames forth like raging fire.

⁷ “They kill their kings one after another,^[ar] and no one cries out to me for help.

⁸ “My people mingle with the heathen, picking up their evil ways; thus they become as good-for-nothing as a half-baked cake!

⁹ “Worshiping foreign gods has sapped their strength, but they don’t know it. Ephraim’s hair is turning gray, and he doesn’t even realize how weak and old he is. ¹⁰ His pride in other gods has openly condemned him; yet he doesn’t return to his God, nor even try to find him.

¹¹ “Ephraim is a silly, witless dove, calling to Egypt, flying to Assyria. ¹² But as she flies, I throw my net over her and bring her down like a bird from the sky; I will punish her for all her evil ways.

¹³ “Woe to my people for deserting me; let them perish, for they have sinned against me. I wanted to redeem them but their hard hearts would not accept the truth. ¹⁴ They lie there sleepless with anxiety but won’t ask my help. Instead, they worship heathen gods, asking them for crops and for prosperity.

¹⁵ “I have helped them and made them strong, yet now they turn against me.

¹⁶ “They look everywhere except to heaven, to the Most High God. They are like a crooked bow that always misses targets; their leaders will perish by the sword of the enemy for their insolence to me. And all Egypt will laugh at them.

8 “Sound the alarm! They are coming! Like a vulture, the enemy descends upon the people of God because they have broken my treaty and revolted against my laws.

² “Now Israel pleads with me and says, ‘Help us, for you are our God!’ ³ But it is too late! Israel has thrown away her chance with contempt, and now her enemies will chase her. ⁴ She has appointed kings and princes, but not with my consent. They have cut themselves off from my help by worshiping the idols that they made from their silver and gold.

⁵ “O Samaria, I reject this calf—this idol you have made. My fury burns against you. How long will it be before one honest man is found among you? ⁶ When will you admit this calf you worship was made by human hands! It is not God! Therefore, it must be smashed to bits.

⁷ “They have sown the wind, and they will reap the whirlwind. Their cornstalks stand there barren, withered, sickly, with no grain; if it has any, foreigners will eat it.

⁸ “Israel is destroyed; she lies among the nations as a broken pot. ⁹ She is a lonely, wandering wild ass. The only friends she has are those she hires; Assyria is one of them.

¹⁰ “But though she hires ‘friends’ from many lands, I will send her off to exile. Then for a while at least she will be free of the burden of her wonderful king! ¹¹ Ephraim has built many altars, but they are not to worship me! They are altars of sin! ¹² Even if I gave her ten thousand laws, she’d say they weren’t for her—that they applied to someone far away. ¹³ Her people love the ritual of their sacrifice, but to me it is meaningless! I will call for an accounting of their sins and punish them; they shall return to Egypt.

¹⁴ “Israel has built great palaces; Judah has constructed great defenses for her cities, but they have forgotten their Maker. Therefore, I will send down fire upon those palaces and burn those fortresses.”

9 O Israel, rejoice no more as others do, for you have deserted your God and sacrificed to other gods on every threshing floor.

² Therefore your harvests will be small; your grapes will blight upon the vine.

³ You may no longer stay here in this land of God; you will be carried off to Egypt and Assyria and live there on scraps of food. ⁴ There, far from home, you are not allowed to pour out wine for sacrifice to God. For no sacrifice that is offered there can please him; it is polluted, just as food of mourners is; all who eat such sacrifices are defiled. They may eat this food to feed themselves, but may not offer it to God. ⁵ What then will you do on holy days, on days of feasting to the Lord, ⁶ when you are carried off to Assyria as slaves? Who will inherit your possessions left behind? Egypt will! She will gather your dead; Memphis will bury them. And thorns and thistles will grow up among the ruins.

⁷ The time of Israel’s punishment has come; the day of recompense is almost here, and soon Israel will know it all too well. “The prophets are crazy”; “The inspired men are mad.” Yes, so they mock, for the nation is weighted with sin and shows only hatred for those who love God.

⁸ “I appointed the prophets to guard my people, but the people have blocked them at every turn and publicly declared their hatred, even in the Temple of the Lord. ⁹ The things my people do are as depraved as what they did in Gibeah^[as] long ago. The Lord does not forget. He will surely punish them.

¹⁰ “O Israel, how well I remember those first delightful days when I led you through the wilderness! How refreshing was your love! How satisfying, like the early figs of summer in their first season! But then you deserted me for Baal-peor,^[at] to give yourselves to other gods, and soon you were as foul as they. ¹¹ The glory of Israel flies away like a bird, for your children will die at birth, or perish in the womb, or never even be conceived. ¹² And if your children grow, I will take them from you; all are doomed. Yes, it will be a sad day when I turn away and leave you alone.”

¹³ In my vision I have seen the sons of Israel doomed. The fathers are forced to lead their sons to slaughter. ¹⁴ O Lord, what shall I ask for your people? I will ask for wombs that don’t give birth, for breasts that cannot nourish.

¹⁵ “All their wickedness began at Gilgal;^[au] there I began to hate them. I will drive them from my land because of their idolatry. I will love them no more, for all their leaders are rebels. ¹⁶ Ephraim is doomed. The roots of Israel are dried up; she shall bear no more fruit. And if she gives birth, I will slay even her beloved child.”

¹⁷ My God will destroy the people of Israel because they will not listen or obey. They will be wandering Jews, homeless among the nations.

10 “How prosperous Israel is—a luxuriant vine all filled with fruit! But the more wealth I give her, the more she pours it on the altars of her heathen gods; the richer the harvests I give her, the more beautiful the statues and idols she erects. ² The hearts of her people are false toward God. They are guilty and must be punished. God will break down their heathen altars and smash their idols.”

³ Then they will say, “We deserted the Lord and he took away our king. But what’s the difference? We don’t need one anyway!”

⁴ They make promises they don’t intend to keep. Therefore punishment will spring up among them like poisonous weeds in the furrows of the field. ⁵ The people of Samaria tremble lest their calf idol at Beth-aven should be hurt; the priests and people, too, mourn over the departed honor of their shattered gods. ⁶ This idol—this calf-god thing—will be carted with them when they go as slaves to Assyria, a present to the great king there. Ephraim will be laughed at for trusting in this idol; Israel will be put to shame. ⁷ As for Samaria, her king shall disappear like a chip of wood upon an ocean wave. ⁸ And the idol altars of Aven at Bethel where Israel sinned will crumble. Thorns and thistles will grow up to surround them. And the people will cry to the mountains and hills to fall upon them and crush them.

⁹ “O Israel, ever since that awful night in Gibeah,^[av] there has been only sin, sin, sin! You have made no progress whatever. Was it not right that the men of Gibeah were wiped out? ¹⁰ I will come against you for your disobedience; I will gather the armies of the nations against you to punish you for your heaped-up sins.

¹¹ “Ephraim is accustomed to treading out the grain—an easy job she loves. I have never put her under a heavy yoke before; I have spared her tender neck. But now I will harness her to the plow and harrow. Her days of ease are gone.

¹² “Plant the good seeds of righteousness, and you will reap a crop of my love; plow the hard ground of your hearts, for now is the time to seek the Lord, that he may come and shower salvation upon you.

¹³ “But you have cultivated wickedness and raised a thriving crop of sins. You have earned the full reward of trusting in a lie—believing that military might and great armies can make a nation safe!

¹⁴ “Therefore, the terrors of war shall rise among your people, and all your forts will fall, just as at Beth-arbel, which Shalman^[aw] destroyed; even mothers and children were dashed to death there. ¹⁵ That will be your fate, too, you people of Israel, because of your great wickedness. In one morning the king of Israel shall be destroyed.

11 “When Israel was a child, I loved him as a son and brought him out of Egypt. ² But the more I called to him, the more he rebelled, sacrificing to Baal and burning incense to idols. ³ I trained him from infancy, I taught him to walk, I held him in my arms. But he doesn’t know or even care that it was I who raised him.

⁴ “As a man would lead his favorite ox,^[ax] so I led Israel with my ropes of love. I loosened his muzzle so he could eat. I myself have stooped and fed him. ⁵ But my people shall return to Egypt and Assyria because they won’t return to me.

⁶ “War will swirl through their cities; their enemies will crash through their gates and trap them in their own fortresses. ⁷ For my people are determined to desert me. And so I have sentenced them to slavery, and no one shall set them free.

⁸ “Oh, how can I give you up, my Ephraim? How can I let you go? How can I forsake you like Admah and Zeboiim?^[ay] My heart cries out within me; how I long to help you! ⁹ No, I will not punish you as much as my fierce anger tells me to. This is the last time I will destroy Ephraim. For I am God and not man; I am the Holy One living among you, and I did not come to destroy.

¹⁰ “For the people shall walk after the Lord. I shall roar as a lion at their enemies and my people shall return trembling from the west. ¹¹ Like a flock of birds, they will come from Egypt—like doves flying from Assyria. And I will bring them home again; it is a promise from the Lord.”

¹² Israel surrounds me with lies and deceit, but Judah still trusts in God and is faithful to the Holy One.

12 Israel is chasing the wind, yes, shepherding a whirlwind—a dangerous game!^[az] For she has given gifts to Egypt and Assyria to get their help, and in return she gets their worthless promises.

² But the Lord is bringing a lawsuit against Judah. Jacob will be justly punished for his ways. ³ When he was born, he struggled with his brother; when he became a man, he even fought with God. ⁴ Yes, he wrestled with the Angel and prevailed. He wept and pleaded for a blessing from him. He met God there at Bethel face-to-face. God spoke to him— ⁵ the Lord, the God of heaven’s armies—Jehovah is his name.

⁶ Oh, come back to God. Live by the principles of love and justice, and always be expecting much from him, your God.

⁷ But no, my people are like crafty merchants selling from dishonest scales—they love to cheat. ⁸ Ephraim boasts, “I am so rich! I have gotten it all by myself!” But riches can’t make up for sin.

⁹ “I am the same Lord, the same God, who delivered you from slavery in Egypt, and I am the one who will consign you to living in tents again, as you do each year at the Tabernacle Feast. ¹⁰ I sent my prophets to warn you with many a vision and many a parable and dream.”

¹¹ But the sins of Gilgal flourish just the same. Row on row of altars—like furrows in a field—are used for sacrifices to your idols. And Gilead, too, is full of fools^[ba] who worship idols. ¹² Jacob fled to Syria and earned a wife by tending sheep. ¹³ Then the Lord led his people out of Egypt by a prophet, who guided and protected them. ¹⁴ But Ephraim has bitterly provoked the Lord. The Lord will sentence him to death as payment for his sins.

13 It used to be when Israel spoke, the nations shook with fear, for he was a mighty prince; but he worshiped Baal and sealed his doom.

² And now the people disobey more and more. They melt their silver to mold into idols, formed with skill by the hands of men. “Sacrifice to these!” they say—men kissing calves! ³ They shall disappear like morning mist, like dew that quickly dries away, like chaff blown by the wind, like a cloud of smoke.

⁴ “I alone am God, your Lord, and have been ever since I brought you out from Egypt. You have no God but me, for there is no other Savior. ⁵ I took care of you in the wilderness, in that dry and thirsty land. ⁶ But when you had eaten and were satisfied, then you became proud and forgot me.