A call to repentance
6
📚“Come, and let us return
to the LORD;
for he has torn us,
but he will heal us. He has struck us,
but he will bind up our wounds.
2 📚After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will raise us up,
and we will live in his sight.
3 📚Then we will know the LORD,
if we press on to know him.
His coming is as certain as the morning,
and he will come to us like the rain,
like the latter and former
rain to the earth”.
Further charges against Israel
4 📚“O Ephraim, what shall
I do with you?
O Judah, what shall I do
with you?
For your goodness is like a
morning cloud,
and it goes away like
the early dew.
5 📚Therefore I have cut them down
by the prophets,
I have slain them by the words
of my mouth.
And judgments on you are like
light going forth.
6 📚For I delight in mercy,
and not sacrifice,
and the knowledge of God
more than burnt offerings.
7 📚But like men they have transgressed
the covenant.
There they have dealt treacherously
against me.
8 📚Gilead is a city of evildoers,
and is defiled with blood.
9 📚And as bands of robbers lie
in wait for a man,
so the company of priests
commit murder on the
way to Shechem;
they commit shameful deeds.
10 📚I have seen a horrible thing
in the house of Israel.
There is the prostitution of Ephraim,
Israel is defiled.
11 📚Also, O Judah,
there is a harvest appointed for you,
when I bring back my people from captivity.