- You were a healthy vine covered with grapes. But the more grapes you grew, the more altars you built; the better off you became, the better shrines you set up for pagan gods.
- You are deceitful and disloyal. So you will pay for your sins, because the LORD will destroy your altars and images.
- "We don't have a king," you will say. "We don't fear the LORD. And what good are kings?"
- Israel, you break treaties and don't keep promises; you turn justice into poisonous weeds where healthy plants should grow.
- All who live in Samaria tremble with concern for the idols at sinful Bethel. The idol there was the pride of the priests, but it has been put to shame; now everyone will cry.
- It will be taken to Assyria and given to the great king. Then Israel will be disgraced for worshiping that idol.
- Like a twig in a stream, the king of Samaria will be swept away.
- The altars at sinful Bethel will be destroyed for causing Israel to sin; they will be grown over with thorns and thistles. Then everyone will beg the mountains and hills to cover and protect them.
- Israel, you have never stopped sinning since that time at Gibeah. That's why you will be attacked at Gibeah.
- Your sins have doubled, and you are rebellious. Now I have decided to send nations to attack and put you in chains.
- Once you were obedient like a calf that loved to thresh grain. But I will put a harness on your powerful neck; you and Judah must plow and cultivate the ground.
- Plow your fields, scatter seeds of justice, and harvest faithfulness. Worship me, the LORD, and I will send my saving power down like rain.
- You have planted evil, harvested injustice, and eaten the fruit of your lies. You trusted your own strength and your powerful forces.
- So war will break out, and your fortresses will be destroyed. Your enemies will do to you what Shalman did to the people of Beth-Arbel-- mothers and their children will be beaten to death against rocks.
- Bethel, this will be your fate because of your evil. Israel, at dawn your king will be killed.
God is a personal God, though, who wants us to give ourselves to a relationship with Him. While the Old Testament worship involved certain rituals for the atonement of sin, on the relational side God expected His worshipers to value what He valued which involved obedience to a moral code. God valued adherence to the moral code more than He did the rituals. Failure to live morally correct, or righteously, signaled that one did not value what God valued nor did they value their relationship with God.
So, as Israel became more and more idolatrous, she valued the moral lifestyle God prescribed less and less, and thus, valued her relationship with God less and less. Valuing God less is invariably accompanied by valuing others less. This devaluing of God and others became evident with Israel as the hearts of the people became more and more devious. The people eventually came to the point that they not only didn't need God, but that they didn't need a king who was God's representative to govern them. This, of course, led to a societal breakdown. They didn't keep their covenant with God nor did they keep contracts with each other. The courts were swamped with lawsuits.
God would respond to this by destroying their idols which would cause great anxiety among the people. Loss of their idols represented to them loss of their prosperity. Besides the loss of their idols they would experience the loss of their king, and the people would call on the mountains and hills to fall on them.
Having withdrawn themselves from God, Israel then no longer had His protection against her enemies. These enemies would gather against Israel and war would destroy her. Neither Israel's great army nor her fortifications would protect her, for her real protection was the Lord whom she had abandoned.
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