- Israel, don't celebrate or make noisy shouts like other nations. You have been unfaithful to your God. Wherever grain is threshed, you behave like prostitutes because you enjoy the money you receive.
- But you will run short of grain and wine,
- and you will have to leave the land of the LORD. Some of you will go to Egypt; others will go to Assyria and eat unclean food.
- You won't be able to offer sacrifices of wine to the LORD. None of your sacrifices will please him-- they will be unclean like food offered to the dead. Your food will only be used to satisfy your hunger; none of it will be brought to the LORD's temple.
- You will no longer be able to celebrate the festival of the LORD.
- Even if you escape alive, you will end up in Egypt and be buried in Memphis. Your silver treasures will be lost among weeds; thorns will sprout in your tents.
- Israel, the time has come. You will get what you deserve, and you will know it. "Prophets are fools," you say. "And God's messengers are crazy." Your terrible guilt has filled you with hatred.
- Israel, the LORD sent me to look after you. But you trap his prophets and flood his temple with your hatred.
- You are brutal and corrupt, as were the men of Gibeah. But God remembers your sin, and you will be punished.
- Israel, when I, the LORD, found you long ago it was like finding grapes in a barren desert or tender young figs. Then you worshiped Baal Peor, that disgusting idol, and you became as disgusting as the idol you loved.
- And so, Israel, your glory will fly away like birds-- your women will no longer be able to give birth.
- Even if you do have children, I will take them all and leave you to mourn. I will turn away, and you will sink down in deep trouble.
- Israel, when I first met you, I thought of you as palm trees growing in fertile ground. Now you lead your people out, only to be slaughtered.
- Our LORD, do just one thing for your people-- make their women unable to have children or to nurse their babies.
- Israel, I first began to hate you because you did evil at Gilgal. Now I will chase you out of my house. No longer will I love you; your leaders betrayed me.
- Israel, you are a vine with dried-up roots and fruitless branches. Even if you had more children and loved them dearly, I would slaughter them all.
- Israel, you disobeyed my God. Now he will force you to roam from nation to nation.
So the question was raised, "What will you do on a festival day?" These were days they typically made offerings to the Lord and celebrated with festivities and food and wine. But they would be in exile and could not do this, so what would they do? Though Egypt was mentioned as the place of exile, symbolically referring to a return to slavery, their actual exile location would be Assryia.
The time for Israel's punishment had come. God's patience had come to its end. Not only had Israel prostituted herself with other gods, she had been hostile toward the prophets God sent to them to warn them of their unfaithfulness and resulting punishment if they didn't change their ways. They attempted to ensnare the prophets, pulling them into idolatry with them. In all of this they had forgotten the God who "discovered Israel like grapes in the wilderness" and saw them as the "first fruit of the fig tree" when the fruit is most delicious. But instead of being something to be desired, Israel had become detestable.
Israel's punishment would fit her 'crime' or rather her sin. It was noted earlier that she would lose her grain harvests which she had credited to idols rather than to God. In verses 11-17 it is pointed out that because of her participation in Baal fertility rites expecting to 'assure' their fruitfulness in having children, they would no longer be fruitful in this way either. They would experience sterility and miscarriage and death of the children they were able to birth. On top of this they would become wanderers without a home.
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