Israel Will Reap the Whirlwind

[Put] the ram’s horn to your lips!

An eagle looms over the house of the LORD,

because [the people] have transgressed My covenant

and rebelled against My law.

2 

Israel cries out to Me,

“O our God, we know You!”

3 

[But] Israel has rejected good;

an enemy will pursue him.

4 

They set up kings, but not by Me.

They make princes, but without My approval.

With their silver and gold they make themselves idols,

to their own destruction.

5 

He has rejected your calf,[fn] O Samaria.

My anger burns against them.

How long will they be

incapable of innocence?

6 

For this thing is from Israel—

a craftsman made it, and it is not God.

It will be broken to pieces,

that calf of Samaria.

7 

For they sow the wind,

and they shall reap the whirlwind.

There is no standing grain;

what sprouts fails to yield flour.

Even if it should produce,

the foreigners would swallow it up.

8 

Israel is swallowed up!

Now they are among the nations

like a worthless vessel.

9 

For they have gone up to Assyria

like a wild donkey on its own

Ephraim[fn] has hired lovers.

10 

Though they hire allies among the nations,

I will now round them up,

and they will begin to diminish

under the oppression of the king of princes.

11 

Though Ephraim multiplied the altars for sin,

they became his altars for sinning.

12 

Though I wrote for them the great things of My law,

they regarded them as something strange.

13 

Though they offer sacrifices as gifts to Me,

and [though they] eat the meat,

the LORD does not accept them.

Now He will remember their iniquity and punish their sins:

They will return to Egypt.

14 

Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces;

Judah has multiplied its fortified cities.

But I will send fire upon their cities,

and it will consume their citadels. 9