1 Israel is a luxuriant vine;
He produces fruit for himself.
The more his fruit,
The more altars he made;
The richer his land,
The better he made the memorial stones.
2 Their heart is deceitful;
Now they must suffer for their guilt.
The Lord will break down their altars
And destroy their memorial stones.
3 Certainly now they will say, “We have no king,
For we do not revere the Lord.
As for the king, what can he do for us?”
4 They speak mere words,
With worthless oaths they make covenants;
And judgment sprouts like poisonous weeds in the furrows of the field.
5 The inhabitants of Samaria will fear
For the calf of Beth-aven.
Indeed, its people will mourn for it,
And its idolatrous priests will cry out over it,
Over its glory, since it has left it.
6 The thing itself will be brought to Assyria
As a gift of tribute to King Jareb;
Ephraim will be seized with shame,
And Israel will be ashamed of its own plan.
7 Samaria will be destroyed with her king,
Like a twig on the surface of the water.
8 Also the high places of Aven, the sin of Israel, will be destroyed;
Thorns and thistles will grow on their altars;
Then they will say to the mountains,
“Cover us!” And to the hills, “Fall on us!”
9 Since the days of Gibeah you have sinned, Israel;
There they stand!
Will the battle against the sons of injustice not overtake them in Gibeah?
10 When it is My desire, I will discipline them;
And the peoples will be gathered against them
When they are bound for their double guilt.
11 Ephraim is a trained heifer that loves to thresh,
And I passed over her lovely neck;
I will harness Ephraim,
Judah will plow, Jacob will harrow for himself.
12 Sow for yourselves, with a view to righteousness;
Harvest in accordance with kindness.
Break up your uncultivated ground,
For it is time to seek the Lord
Until He comes and rains righteousness on you.
13 You have plowed wickedness, you have harvested injustice,
You have eaten the fruit of lies.
Because you have trusted in your way, in your many warriors,
14 An uproar will arise among your people,
And all your fortresses will be destroyed,
As Shalman destroyed Beth-arbel on the day of battle,
When mothers were slaughtered with their children.
15 So it will be done to you at Bethel because of your great wickedness.
At dawn the king of Israel will be completely destroyed.
1 When Israel was a youth I loved him,
And out of Egypt I called My son.
2 The more they called them,
The more they went away from them;
They kept sacrificing to the Baals
And burning incense to idols.
3 Yet it is I who taught Ephraim to walk,
I took them in My arms;
But they did not know that I healed them.
4 I pulled them along with cords of a man, with ropes of love,
And I became to them as one who lifts the yoke from their jaws;
And I bent down and fed them.
5 They will not return to the land of Egypt;
But Assyria—he will be their king
Because they refused to return to Me.
6 And the sword will whirl against their cities,
And will destroy their oracle priests
And consume them, because of their counsels.
7 So My people are determined to turn from Me.
Though they call them to the One on high,
None at all exalts Him.
8 How can I give you up, Ephraim?
How can I surrender you, Israel?
How can I make you like Admah?
How can I treat you like Zeboiim?
My heart is turned over within Me,
All My compassions are kindled.
9 I will not carry out My fierce anger;
I will not destroy Ephraim again.
For I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst,
And I will not come in wrath.
10 They will walk after the Lord,
He will roar like a lion;
Indeed He will roar,
And His sons will come trembling from the west.
11 They will come trembling like birds from Egypt,
And like doves from the land of Assyria;
And I will settle them in their houses, declares the Lord.
12 Ephraim surrounds Me with lies
And the house of Israel with deceit;
Judah is still unruly against God,
Even against the Holy One who is faithful.
1 Ephraim feeds on wind,
And pursues the east wind continually;
He multiplies lies and violence.
Moreover, he makes a covenant with Assyria,
And oil is brought to Egypt.
2 The Lord also has a case against Judah,
And will punish Jacob according to his ways;
He will repay him according to his deeds.
3 In the womb he took his brother by the heel,
And in his mature strength he contended with God.
4 Yes, he wrestled with the angel and prevailed;
He wept and implored His favor.
He found Him at Bethel,
And there He spoke with us,
5 And the Lord, the God of armies,
The Lord is His name.
6 So as for you, return to your God,
Maintain kindness and justice,
And wait for your God continually.
7 A merchant, in whose hands are fraudulent balances,
Loves to exploit.
8 And Ephraim said, “I have certainly become rich,
I have found wealth for myself;
In all my labors they will find in me
No wrongdoing, which would be sin.”
9 But I have been the Lord your God since the land of Egypt;
I will make you live in tents again,
As in the days of the appointed festival.
10 I have also spoken to the prophets,
And I provided many visions,
And through the prophets I spoke in parables.
11 Is there injustice in Gilead?
Certainly they are worthless.
In Gilgal they sacrifice bulls,
Yes, their altars are like stone heaps
Beside the furrows of a field.
12 Now Jacob fled to the land of Aram,
And Israel worked for a wife,
And for a wife he kept sheep.
13 But by a prophet the Lord brought Israel up from Egypt,
And by a prophet he was protected.
14 Ephraim has provoked God to bitter anger;
So his Lord will leave his guilt for bloodshed on him
And bring his disgrace back to him.
1 When Ephraim spoke, there was trembling.
He exalted himself in Israel,
But through Baal he incurred guilt and died.
2 And now they sin more and more,
And make for themselves cast metal images,
Idols skillfully made from their silver,
All of them the work of craftsmen.
They say of them, “Let the people who sacrifice kiss the calves!”
3 Therefore they will be like the morning cloud
And like dew which soon disappears,
Like chaff which is blown away from the threshing floor,
And like smoke from a chimney.
4 Yet I have been the Lord your God
Since the land of Egypt;
And you were not to know any god except Me,
For there is no savior besides Me.
5 I cared for you in the wilderness,
In the land of drought.
6 As they had their pasture, they became satisfied,
And as they became satisfied, their heart became proud;
Therefore they forgot Me.
7 So I will be like a lion to them;
Like a leopard I will lie in wait by the wayside.
8 I will confront them like a bear deprived of her cubs,
And I will tear open their chests;
I will also devour them there like a lioness,
As a wild animal would tear them to pieces.
9 It is to your own destruction, Israel,
That you are against Me, against your help.
10 Where then is your king,
That he might save you in all your cities;
And your judges, to whom you said,
“Give me a king and princes”?
11 I gave you a king in My anger,
And took him away in My wrath.
12 The guilt of Ephraim is wrapped up;
His sin is stored up.
13 The pains of childbirth come on him;
He is not a wise son,
For it is not the time that he should delay at the opening of the womb.
14 Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol?
Shall I redeem them from death?
Death, where are your thorns?
Sheol, where is your sting?
Compassion will be hidden from My sight.
15 Though he flourishes among the reeds,
An east wind will come,
The wind of the Lord coming up from the wilderness;
And his fountain will become dry
And his spring will dry up;
It will plunder his treasury of every precious article.
16 Samaria will pay the penalty for her guilt,
Because she has rebelled against her God.
They will fall by the sword,
Their children will be slaughtered,
And their pregnant women will be ripped open.
1 Return, Israel, to the Lord your God,
For you have stumbled because of your wrongdoing.
2 Take words with you and return to the Lord.
Say to Him, “Take away all guilt
And receive us graciously,
So that we may present the fruit of our lips.
3 Assyria will not save us,
We will not ride on horses;
Nor will we say again, ‘Our god’
To the work of our hands;
For in You the orphan finds mercy.”
4 I will heal their apostasy,
I will love them freely,
Because My anger has turned away from them.
5 I will be like the dew to Israel;
He will blossom like the lily,
And he will take root like the cedars of Lebanon.
6 His shoots will sprout,
His majesty will be like the olive tree,
And his fragrance like the cedars of Lebanon.
7 Those who live in his shadow
Will again raise grain,
And they will blossom like the vine.
His fame will be like the wine of Lebanon.
8 Ephraim, what more have I to do with idols?
It is I who answer and look after you.
I am like a luxuriant juniper;
From Me comes your fruit.
9 Whoever is wise, let him understand these things;
Whoever is discerning, let him know them.
For the ways of the Lord are right,
And the righteous will walk in them,
But wrongdoers will stumble in them.
1 Jude, a bond-servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James,
To those who are the called, beloved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ: 2 May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.
3 Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith that was once for all time handed down to the saints. 4 For certain people have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into indecent behavior and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.
5 Now I want to remind you, though you know everything once and for all, that the Lord, after saving a people out of the land of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who did not believe. 6 And angels who did not keep their own domain but abandoned their proper dwelling place, these He has kept in eternal restraints under darkness for the judgment of the great day, 7 just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these angels indulged in sexual perversion and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.
8 Yet in the same way these people also, dreaming, defile the flesh, reject authority, and speak abusively of angelic majesties. 9 But Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him an abusive judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” 10 But these people disparage all the things that they do not understand; and all the things that they know by instinct, like unreasoning animals, by these things they are destroyed. 11 Woe to them! For they have gone the way of Cain, and for pay they have given themselves up to the error of Balaam, and perished in the rebellion of Korah. 12 These are the ones who are hidden reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you without fear, like shepherds caring only for themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted; 13 wild waves of the sea, churning up their own shameful deeds like dirty foam; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of darkness has been reserved forever.
14 It was also about these people that Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord has come with many thousands of His holy ones, 15 to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.” 16 These are grumblers, finding fault, following after their own lusts; they speak arrogantly, flattering people for the sake of gaining an advantage.
17 But you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, 18 that they were saying to you, “In the last time there will be mockers, following after their own ungodly lusts.” 19 These are the ones who cause divisions, worldly-minded, devoid of the Spirit. 20 But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, 21 keep yourselves in the love of God, looking forward to the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. 22 And have mercy on some, who are doubting; 23 save others, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh.
24 Now to Him who is able to protect you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory, blameless with great joy, 25 to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority before all time and now and forever. Amen.
1 Unless the Lord builds a house,
They who build it labor in vain;
Unless the Lord guards a city,
The watchman stays awake in vain.
2 It is futile for you to rise up early,
To stay up late,
To eat the bread of painful labor;
This is how He gives to His beloved sleep.
3 Behold, children are a gift of the Lord,
The fruit of the womb is a reward.
4 Like arrows in the hand of a warrior,
So are the children of one’s youth.
5 Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them;
They will not be ashamed
When they speak with their enemies in the gate.
15 The rod and a rebuke give wisdom,
But a child who gets his own way brings shame to his mother.
16 When the wicked increase, wrongdoing increases;
But the righteous will see their downfall.
17 Correct your son, and he will give you comfort;
He will also delight your soul.
