# Chapter 8
1 Put the ram’s horn to your mouth!
One like an eagle comes
against the house of the Lord,
because they transgress my covenant
and rebel against my law.
2 Israel cries out to me,
“My God, we know you!”
3 Israel has rejected what is good;
an enemy will pursue him.
4 They have installed kings,
but not through me.
They have appointed leaders,
but without my approval.
They make their silver and gold
into idols for themselves
for their own destruction.
5 Your calf-idol is rejected, Samaria.
My anger burns against them.
How long will they be incapable of innocence?
6 For this thing is from Israel—
a craftsman made it, and it is not God.
The calf of Samaria will be smashed to bits!
7 Indeed, they sow the wind
and reap the whirlwind.
There is no standing grain;
what sprouts fails to yield flour.
Even if they did,
foreigners would swallow it up.
8 Israel is swallowed up!
Now they are among the nations
like discarded pottery.
9 For they have gone up to Assyria
like a wild donkey going off on its own.
Ephraim has paid for love.
10 Even though they hire lovers among the nations,
I will now round them up,
and they will begin to decrease in number
under the burden of the king and leaders.
11 When Ephraim multiplied his altars for sin,
they became his altars for sinning.
12 Though I were to write out for him
ten thousand points of my instruction,
they would be regarded as something strange.
13 Though they offer sacrificial gifts
and eat the flesh,
the Lord does not accept them.
Now he will remember their guilt
and punish their sins;
they will return to Egypt.
14 Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces;
Judah has also multiplied fortified cities.
I will send fire on their cities,
and it will consume their citadels.