Nancy: Welcome To Immerse: The Daily Bible Reading Experience.
Day 200 and 47
The Lord says, oh, Israel, when I first found you, it was like
finding fresh grapes in the desert.
When I saw your ancestors, it was like seeing the first ripe figs of the season.
But then they deserted me for Baal Peor, giving themselves to that shameful idol.
Soon they became vile.
As vile as the God they worshiped, the glory of Israel will fly away like a bird
for your children will not be born or grow in the womb or even be conceived.
Even if you do have children who grow up, I will take them from you.
It will be a terrible day when I turn away and leave you alone.
I have watched Israel become as beautiful as tire, but now.
Israel will bring out her children for slaughter.
Oh Lord, what should I request for your people?
I will ask for wombs that don't give birth and breasts that give no milk.
The Lord says all their wickedness began at Gilgal there.
I began to hate them.
I will drive them from my land because of their evil actions.
I will love them no more because all their leaders are rebels.
The people of Israel are struck down.
Their roots are dried up, and they will bear no more fruit.
And if they give birth, I will slaughter their beloved children.
My God will reject the people of Israel because they will not listen or obey.
They will be wanderers, homeless among the nations.
How prosperous Israel is a luxurious vine loaded with fruit,
but the richer the people get, the more pagan altars they build.
The more bountiful their harvests, the more beautiful their sacred pillars.
The hearts of the people are fickle.
They are guilty and must be punished.
The Lord will break down their altars and smash their sacred pillars.
Then they will say, we have no king because we didn't fear the
Lord, but even if we had a king, what could he do for us anyway?
They spout empty words and make covenants they don't intend to keep.
So when Justice springs up among them like poisonous weeds in a farmer's
field, the people of Samaria tremble in fear for their calf idol at
Beth Aven, and they mourn for it.
Though its priests rejoice over it, its glory will be stripped away.
This idol will be carted away to Assyria, a gift to the great king There.
EAM will be ridiculed and Israel will be shamed because its people
have trusted in this idol, Samaria and its king will be cut off.
They will float away like driftwood on an ocean wave.
The pagan shrines of Aven, the place of Israel's sin will crumble.
Thorns and thistles will grow up around their altars.
They will beg the mountains, bury us, and plead with the hills, fall on us.
The Lord says, oh Israel.
Ever since Gibbon, there has been only sin and more sin.
You have made no progress whatsoever.
Was it not right that the wicked men of Gibbon were attacked?
Now, whenever it fits my plan, I will attack you too.
I will call out the armies of the nations to punish you for your multiplied sins.
Israel is like a trained heifer treading out the grain and easy job she loves.
But I will put a heavy yolk on her tender neck.
I will force Judah to pull the plow and Israel to break up the hard ground.
I said, plant the good seeds of righteousness and you
will harvest a crop of love.
Plow up the hard ground of your hearts.
For now is the time to seek the Lord that he may come and shower righteousness upon
you, but you have cultivated wickedness and harvested a thriving crop of sins.
You have eaten the fruit of lies.
Trusting in your military might believing that great armies
could make your nation safe.
Now, the terrors of war will rise among your people.
All your fortifications will fall just as when shaman destroyed Beth Arbel.
Even mothers and children were dashed to death.
There you will share that fate, Bethel, because of your great wickedness.
When the day of judgment dawns the King of Israel will be completely destroyed.
When Israel was a child, I loved him and I called my son out of Egypt.
But the more I called to him, the farther he moved from me, offering
sacrifices to the images of Baal and burning incense to idols.
I myself taught Israel how to walk.
Leading him along by the hand.
He doesn't know or even care that it was I who took care of him.
I led Israel along with my ropes of kindness and love.
I lifted the yoke from his neck and I myself stooped to feed him.
But since my people refuse to return to me, they will return to
Egypt and will be forced to serve.
Assyria War will swirl through their cities.
Their enemies will crash through their gates.
They will destroy them, trapping them in their own evil plans.
For my people are determined to desert me.
They call me the most high, but they don't truly honor me.
Oh, how can I give you up Israel?
How can I let you go?
How can I destroy you?
Like Adah or demolish you like Zeum.
My heart is torn within me and my compassion overflows.
No, I will not unleash my fierce anger.
I will not completely destroy Israel.
For I am God and not a mere mortal.
I am the holy one living among you, and I will not come to destroy for
someday that people will follow me.
I, the Lord will roar like a lion, and when I roar, my people
will return trembling from the west like a flock of birds.
They will come from Egypt, trembling like doves.
They will return from Assyria and I will bring them home again, says the Lord.
Israel surrounds me with lies and deceit, but Judah still obeys God
and is faithful to the holy one.
The people of Israel feed on the wind.
They chase after the east wind All day long.
They pile up lies and violence.
They are making an alliance with Assyria while sending olive
oil to buy support from Egypt.
Now the Lord is bringing charges against Judah.
He is about to punish Jacob for all his deceitful ways and pay him back
for all he has done even in the womb.
Jacob struggled with his brother.
When he became a man, he even fought with God.
Yes, he wrestled with the angel and won.
He wept and pleaded for a blessing from him there at Bethel.
He met God face to face and God spoke to him.
The Lord God of heaven's armies.
The Lord is his name.
So now come back to your God, act with love and justice,
and always depend on him.
No, the people are like crafty merchants selling from dishonest scales.
They love to cheat.
Israel boasts, I am rich.
I've made a fortune all by myself.
No one has caught me cheating.
My record is spotless, but I am the Lord your God.
Who rescued you from slavery in Egypt?
And I will make you live in tents again, as you do each year
at the Festival of Shelters.
I sent my prophets to warn you with many visions and parables, but
the people of Gilead are worthless because of their idol worship.
And in Gilgal too, they sacrifice bulls.
Their altars are lined up like the heaps of stone along
the edges of a plowed field.
Jacob fled to the land of Arum, and there he earned a wife by
tending sheep, then by a prophet.
The Lord brought Jacob's descendants out of Egypt, and by
that prophet they were protected.
But the people of Israel have bitterly provoked the Lord, so
their Lord will now sentence them to death in payment for their sins.
When the tribe of Efram spoke, The people shook with fear for that tribe
was important in Israel, but the people of Efram sinned by worshiping Baal
and thus sealed their destruction.
Now they continue to sin by making silver idols, images shaped skillfully
with human hands sacrifice To these, they cry and kiss the calf idols.
Therefore, they will disappear like the morning mist, like do in the morning sun.
Like chaff blown by the wind, like smoke from a chimney.
I have been the Lord your God.
Ever since I brought you out of Egypt, you must acknowledge no God
but me for there is no other savior.
I took care of you in the wilderness, in that dry and thirsty land, but
when you had eaten and were satisfied, you became proud and forgot me.
So now I will attack you like a lion, like a leopard that lurks along the road like
a bear whose cubs have been taken away.
I will tear out your heart.
I will devour you like a hungry lions and mangle.
You like a wild animal.
You are about to be destroyed.
Oh, Israel, yes, by me.
Your only helper.
Now where is your king?
Let him save you.
Where are all the leaders of the land, the king and the officials You demanded
of me in my anger I gave you kings, and in my fury, I took them away.
Efraim's guilt has been collected and his sin has been stored up for punishment.
Pain has come to the people like the pain of childbirth, but they are
like a child who resists being born.
The moment of birth has arrived.
They stay in the womb.
Should I ransom them from the grave?
Should I redeem them from death?
Oh, death.
Bring on your terrors.
Oh grave, bring on your plagues for I will not take pity on them.
Efraim was the most fruitful of all his brothers, but the east wind, a blast
from the Lord will arise in the desert.
All their flowing springs will run dry and all their wells will disappear.
Every precious thing they own will be plundered and carried away.
The people of Samaria must bear the consequences of their guilt because
they rebelled against their God.
They will be killed by an invading army.
Their little ones dashed to death against the ground.
Their pregnant women ripped open by swords.
Return O Israel to the Lord your God, for your sins have brought you down.
Bring your confessions and return to the Lord.
Say to him, forgive all our sins and graciously receive us so that
we may offer you our praises.
Assyria cannot save us, nor can our war horses.
Never again will we say to the idols we have made.
You are our gods.
No in you alone, do the orphans find mercy.
The Lord says, then I will heal you of your faithlessness.
My love will no, no bounds for my anger will be gone forever.
I will be to Israel like a refreshing dew from heaven.
Israel will blossom like the lily.
It will send roots deep into the soil like the cedars in Lebanon.
Its branches will spread out like beautiful olive trees.
As fragrant as the cedars of Lebanon.
My people will again live under my shade.
They will flourish like grain and blossom like grapevines.
They will be as fragrant as the wines of Lebanon.
Oh, Israel, stay away from idols.
I am the one who answers your prayers and cares for you.
I am like a tree that is always green.
All your fruit comes from me.
Let those who are wise understand these things.
Let those with discernment.
Listen carefully.
The paths of the Lord are true and right, and righteous
people live by walking in them.
But in those paths, sinners stumble and fall.
This concludes today's Immerse Reading experience.
Thank you for joining us.