10
1 “Israel was like a large healthy/luxuriant vine [MET]
that produced a lot of grapes.
But as the people became richer,
they made more altars at which to worship idols.
As the people prospered,
they built and decorated sacred pillars that they worshiped.
2 They are deceitful;
so now they are guilty and must be punished.
I, Yahweh, will tear down their altars
and smash those pillars.
3 Then they will say, ‘It is because we did not revere Yahweh
that we no longer have a king.
But even if we had a king,
he certainly could not [RHQ] do anything to help us.’
4 They falsely promise that they will do many things;
they solemnly promise and make agreements,
but they do not do what they promise.
So people accuse and sue each other in the courts;
they are like [SIM] poisonous weeds that grow in a plowed field.
5 The people who live in Samaria city are worried about what may happen to the idol that resembles a calf that they set up at Beth-Aven town.
The people in Samaria will mourn,
and the priests there will cry about it
if it is damaged or destroyed.
Previously they shouted joyfully
about its being very great;
but now it will not be great any more.
6 It will be taken to Assyria
to be a gift for the great King of Assyria.
So the people of Israel will be disgraced,
and they will be ashamed
because they trusted in that idol.
7 The King of Samaria and the other people in Samaria will be gone;
they will be like [SIM] a twig that floats away on the surface of the water and disappears.
8 The altars on the tops of hills where the people worshiped idols will be destroyed;
those have been the places where the people of Israel sinned greatly.
Thorns and weeds will grow and cover those altars.
Then the people will plead to the mountains and hills,
‘Fall down and cover us
to protect us from God punishing us!’
9 You people of Israel, ever since your ancestors did evil things at Gibeah,
you have continued to sin.
When the people at [PRS] Gibeah did evil things,
the result was a war in which thousands of people died.
10 So now, when I want to, I will punish the Israeli people.
Because of the many sins that they have committed,
the armies of other nations will gather to attack them,
and they will cause the Israeli people to become their slaves.
11 Israel is like [MET] a well-trained ◄heifer/young cow►
that likes to thresh grain.
So now you will become slaves.
It will be as though I will put a yoke on your neck,
and you will be forced to work hard for your enemies in their fields.
You people of Israel and Judah will be forced to go to Assyria;
there you [DOU] will pull plows to break up the ground for planting seeds.
12 You plow your fields and plant your seeds and harvest your crops [MET],
but what you need to do is to act righteously and to faithfully love me;
you need to repent [MET],
because it is time to try to know me, Yahweh;
and if you do that, I will pour out [MET] many blessings on you.
13 You plant seeds and harvest the crops and eat them;
but what I consider that you have really done is that you have planted wicked things and harvested evil things
and eaten [MET] the results [IDM] of the lies that you have told.
Instead of trusting in me, you have ◄depended on/trusted in► your own power
and in your many soldiers.
14 As a result, you will soon hear the roar of battle,
and all your cities that have walls around them will be destroyed,
like [SIM] Shalman’s army destroyed Beth-Arbel city in a battle,
and the women in that city and their children were bashed to death.
15 You people of [APO] Bethel city, that is what will happen to you,
because you are very wicked.
And when the sun rises on that day,
the King of Israel will be killed in the battle.”