# Chapter 12
1 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.
2 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.
3 Even in the womb,
    Jacob struggled with his brother;
when he became a man,
    he even fought with God.
4 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—
5 the Lord God of Heaven’s Armies,
    the Lord is his name!
6 So now, come back to your God.
    Act with love and justice,
    and always depend on him.
7 But no, the people are like crafty merchants
    selling from dishonest scales—
    they love to cheat.
8 Israel boasts, “I am rich!
    I’ve made a fortune all by myself!
No one has caught me cheating!
    My record is spotless!”
9 “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.
10 I sent my prophets to warn you
    with many visions and parables.”
11 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.
12 Jacob fled to the land of Aram,
    and there he earned a wife by tending sheep.
13 Then by a prophet
    the Lord brought Jacob’s descendants out of Egypt;
and by that prophet
    they were protected.
14 But the people of Israel
    have bitterly provoked the Lord,
so their Lord will now sentence them to death
    in payment for their sins.