Today's Reading

1 A trumpet to your lips! / Like an eagle he comes against the house of Jehovah, / Because they have trespassed My covenant / And have transgressed against My law.

2 They will cry unto Me, / My God, we — Israel — know You.

3 Israel has cast off what is good; / The enemy will pursue him.

4 They have set up kings, but not by Me; / They have set up princes, but I did not acknowledge it. / With their silver and their gold they made / Idols for themselves, / That they might be cut off.

5 Your calf has cast you off, O Samaria; / My anger burns against them. / How long will they be incapable of innocence?

6 For from Israel is this! / A workman made it; / Thus it is no God. / The calf of Samaria / Will be shattered to pieces.

7 For they have sown wind, / And they will reap a whirlwind. / It has no stalk; should there be a sprout, / It will not produce flour; / If it should produce, / Strangers will swallow it up.

8 Israel has been swallowed up; / Now they have become among the nations / Like a vessel in which no one takes pleasure.

9 For they have gone up to Assyria / Like a wild ass gone alone by itself; / Ephraim has hired lovers.

10 Indeed though they have hired such among the nations, / I will now gather them; / And they will begin to be diminished because of the burden / Of the king of the princes.

11 Because Ephraim has multiplied altars for sin, / Altars will be to him for sin.

12 I wrote for him the ten thousand things of My law, / But they are considered as a strange thing.

13 As for the sacrifices of My offerings, / They sacrifice flesh and eat it, / But Jehovah has no delight in them. / Now He will remember their iniquity, / And He will punish their sins; / They will return to Egypt.

14 For Israel has forgotten his Maker / And has built palaces, / And Judah has multiplied fortified cities; / But I will send fire into his cities, / And it will devour its citadels.

1 Do not rejoice, O Israel, / To exult like the nations. / For you have gone as a harlot away from your God; / You have loved payment / Upon every grain floor.

2 The threshing floor and the winepress will not feed them, / And the new wine will fail her.

3 They will not dwell in the land of Jehovah; / But Ephraim will return to Egypt, / And in Assyria they will eat what is unclean.

4 They will not pour out offerings of wine to Jehovah, / Neither will their sacrifices be pleasing to Him; / They will be to them as the bread of mourning; / All who eat them will be unclean, / For their bread will be for themselves; / It will not come into the house of Jehovah.

5 What will you do / In the day of assembly / And in the day of the feast of Jehovah?

6 For they will go because of destruction; / Egypt will gather them; / Moph will bury them. / As for their desirable things of silver, nettles will dispossess them; / Thistles will be in their tents.

7 The days of the visitation have come; / The days of the recompense have come; / Israel will know it. / The prophet is a fool, / The inspired man is mad, / Because of the greatness of your iniquity / And because of the greatness of the enmity.

8 Ephraim was a watchman / With my God. / As for the prophet, a fowler’s trap / Is in all his ways; / Enmity is in the house of his God.

9 They have deeply corrupted themselves / As in the days of Gibeah; / He will remember their iniquity; / He will punish their sins.

10 I found Israel / Like grapes in the wilderness; / I saw your fathers / As the first ripe fruit on the fig tree at its beginning. / They went to Baal-peor / And sanctified themselves unto the shameful thing, / And they became detestable, like the thing that they loved.

11 As for Ephraim, their glory / Will fly away like a bird — / No birth, no pregnancy, and no conception!

12 For even if they bring up their children, / I will bereave them, so that not a man is left. / Indeed woe also to them / When I turn away from them.

13 Ephraim, as I have seen him, / Is planted like Tyre in a meadow; / But Ephraim will bring forth / His children to the slayer.

14 Give them, O Jehovah — / What will You give them? / Give them a miscarrying womb / And dry breasts.

15 All their evil is in Gilgal, / For there I hated them. / Because of the evil of their doings / I will drive them from My house, / I will love them no more; / All their princes are rebels.

16 Ephraim is stricken; / Their root is dried up; / They will not bear fruit. / Indeed though they bring forth, / I will kill the beloved fruit of their womb.

17 My God has rejected them, / For they did not listen to Him. / And they will be wanderers among the nations.

1 Israel is a luxuriant vine; / He brings forth fruit for himself. / According to the abundance of his fruit / He has multiplied altars; / According to the goodness of their land / They have made pillars well.

2 Their heart is divided; / Now they will be found guilty. / He Himself will break down their altars; / He will destroy their pillars.

3 For now they will say, / We have no king, / For we did not fear Jehovah; / And the king, what can he do for us?

4 They speak mere words, / Swearing falsely / While making a covenant; / And judgment sprouts forth like poisonous weeds / In the furrows of the field.

5 The inhabitants of Samaria will fear / For the calves of Beth-aven; / For its people will mourn over it, / And its idol priests will tremble for it, / For its glory, / Because it has departed from it.

6 Indeed it will be carried to Assyria: / A present to the warrior king. / Ephraim will be taken in shame, / And Israel will be ashamed of his own counsel.

7 Samaria will be cut off with her king / And will be like twigs on the surface of the water.

8 And the high places of Aven, the sin of Israel, / Will be destroyed. / The thorn and the thistle will come up / Upon their altars; / And they will say to the mountains, Cover us! / And to the hills, Fall on us!

9 Since the days of Gibeah / You have sinned, O Israel; / There they have stood. / Did not the battle / Overtake them in Gibeah / Because of the children of iniquity?

10 When I so desire, I will chastise them; / And the peoples will be gathered against them, / When they are bound for their double iniquity.

11 And Ephraim is a trained heifer / That loves to tread the grain; / But I have passed the yoke / Over her fair neck: / I will make Ephraim draw the plow; / Judah will plow; / Jacob will break his clods.

12 Sow unto righteousness for yourselves; / Reap according to lovingkindness; / Break up your fallow ground; / For it is time to seek Jehovah / Until He comes and rains / Righteousness on you.

13 You have plowed wickedness; / You have reaped injustice; / You have eaten the fruit of lying. / For you have trusted in your way, / In the multitude of your mighty men.

14 And a tumult will arise among your peoples; / And all your fortresses will be devastated, / As Shalman devastated Beth-arbel / In the day of battle: / The mother was dashed in pieces with the children.

15 Thus Bethel will cause this to happen to you / Because of your great evil: / At dawn the king of Israel / Will be utterly cut off.

1 And to the messenger of the church in Sardis write: These things says He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars: I know your works, that you have a name that you are living, and yet you are dead.

2 Become watchful and establish the things which remain, which were about to die; for I have found none of your works completed before My God.

3 Remember therefore how you have received and heard, and keep it and repent. If therefore you will not watch, I will come as a thief, and you shall by no means know at what hour I will come upon you.

4 But you have a few names in Sardis who have not defiled their garments, and they will walk with Me in white because they are worthy.

5 He who overcomes will be clothed thus, in white garments, and I shall by no means erase his name out of the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.

6 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

7 And to the messenger of the church in Philadelphia write: These things says the Holy One, the true One, the One who has the key of David, the One who opens and no one will shut, and shuts and no one opens:

8 I know your works; behold, I have put before you an opened door which no one can shut, because you have a little power and have kept My word and have not denied My name.

9 Behold, I will make those of the synagogue of Satan, those who call themselves Jews and are not, but lie — behold, I will cause them to come and fall prostrate before your feet and to know that I have loved you.

10 Because you have kept the word of My endurance, I also will keep you out of the hour of trial, which is about to come on the whole inhabited earth, to try them who dwell on the earth.

11 I come quickly; hold fast what you have that no one take your crown.

12 He who overcomes, him I will make a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall by no means go out anymore, and I will write upon him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem, which descends out of heaven from My God, and My new name.

13 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

14 And to the messenger of the church in Laodicea write: These things says the Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the beginning of the creation of God:

15 I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot.

16 So, because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I am about to spew you out of My mouth.

17 Because you say, I am wealthy and have become rich and have need of nothing, and do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked,

18 I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined by fire that you may be rich, and white garments that you may be clothed and that the shame of your nakedness may not be manifested, and eyesalve to anoint your eyes that you may see.

19 As many as I love I reprove and discipline; be zealous therefore and repent.

20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, then I will come in to him and dine with him and he with Me.

21 He who overcomes, to him I will give to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat with My Father on His throne.

22 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.