The Israeli people were insincere about repenting

6 The Israeli people say, “Come, let’s return to Yahweh!

He has caused us to be injured,

but he will heal us.

He has caused us to be wounded,

but it is as though he will put bandages on our wounds [MET].

2 After a very short time he will revive us;

in less than three days he will restore us

in order that we may live in his presence.

3 We must try to know Yahweh;

if we do that, he will come and help us,

as surely as the sun rises every morning,

as surely as rain falls every winter/cold season,

and as surely as the rain falls again ◄in the springtime/at the end of the cold season►.”

4 But Yahweh knows they are insincere;

so he says to them, “You people of Israel, and you people of Judah,

I do not know [RHQ] what I should do to you.

Your being faithful to me will disappear as quickly as [SIM] the morning mist disappears,

like [SIM] the dew on the ground that disappears quickly when the sun shines.

5 I warned [HYP] you by the messages that I gave to the prophets,

but you did not pay attention to my messages.

Therefore I will completely destroy you;

the punishment that I give you will strike you like lightning.

6 I want my people to faithfully love me

more than I want them to offer sacrifices to me;

I want them to know me

more than I want them to completely burn sacrifices on the altar.

7 But they have refused to obey my agreement, just like Adam did;

they have not been faithful to me.

8 Gilead is a city full of people who do wicked things;

in the streets are the bloody footprints of those who have murdered others.

9 The priests are like [SIM] bandits who wait ◄in ambushes/along the road► to attack people;

they murder people who are walking on the road to Shechem,

and they commit other disgraceful crimes.

10 I have seen horrible things being done in Israel [MTY].

The people have abandoned me like prostitutes who have abandoned their husbands [MET];

so the people of Israel have become unacceptable to me.

11 And you people of Judah,

I have appointed a time when I will punish [MET] you, too.

Whenever I wanted to enable my people to prosper again,”

7 “and when I wanted to heal them again,

I did not do it,

because I saw the wicked things that the people of Samaria city and other places in Israel [DOU] have done.

They constantly deceive others;

bandits rob people in the streets.

2 But they do not realize that I do not forget all the evil things that they do.

It is as though they are surrounded by all the sins that they commit;

and it is though those sins are always right in front of me [MTY].

3 Their king is delighted with the wicked things that the people do;

his officials are happy about the people’s lies.

4 The king and his officials are all treacherous.

They are always eager to do wicked things;

they are like [SIM] an oven that is very hot:

a baker mixes the dough and waits for it to expand,

and he does not need to cause the oven to become hotter.

5 The king and his officials get very drunk during their festivals,

carousing with others who also do foolish things.

6 The officials angrily plan to murder the king;

it is like [SIM] they have an oven in their inner beings.

All during the night their eagerness/wanting to murder the king is like a fire that is smouldering,

but in the morning it becomes like [MET] a roaring fire.

7 All those officials are like [MET] hot flames

that completely burn up their rulers,

so all their kings are murdered,

and no one pleads with me to help them.”