The Priests Are a Snare

• Give heed, O house of Israel!
• Listen, O house of the king!
  • Because the judgment applies to you;
• because you have been a snare for Mizpah,
  • and a net spread out on Tabor;
  • 2 [fn] in Shittim, but I am a punishment for all of them.
  • 3  and Israel is not hidden from me;
• because now you have played the whore, O Ephraim—
  • Israel is defiled.
  • 4  to return them to God.
• Because a spirit of whoredom is in their midst,
  • they do not know Yahweh.
  • 5 [fn] and Israel and Ephraim stumble in their guilt,
    • and Judah stumbles with them.
  • 6 [fn] and herds[fn] they will go to seek Yahweh, but they will not find him;
    • he has withdrawn from them.
  • 7  because they have borne illegitimate children.
• Now the new moon will devour them with their fields.
  • 8 [fn] in Gibeah, the trumpet in Ramah.
• Sound the alarm in Beth-aven;
  • look behind you, Benjamin.
  • 9  in the day of punishment;
• among the tribes of Israel
  • I will reveal what is true.
  • 10  like those who remove a landmark;
• on them I will pour out
  • my wrath like water.
  • 11  crushed in judgment,
• because he was determined
  • to go after filth.[fn]
  • 12 am like a maggot to Ephraim and like rottenness to the house of Judah.
  • 13 when Ephraim saw his illness, and Judah his wound,
• Ephraim went to Assyria,
  • he sent to the great king.[fn]
• But he was unable to cure you
  • and heal your wound.
  • 14 will be like a lion to Ephraim and like a fierce strong lion to the house of Judah.
• I myself will tear and I will go;
  • I will carry off, and there is no one who delivers.
  • 15 [fn] to my place until they acknowledge their guilt
    • and seek my face;
  • in their distress they will search[fn] me.