Samaria shall be destroyed. An exhortation to repentance: God's favour
through Christ to the penitent.
14:1. Let Samaria perish, because she hath stirred up her God to
bitterness: let them perish by the sword, let their little ones be
dashed, and let the women with child be ripped up.
Perish, because she hath stirred up her God to bitterness. . .It is not
a curse or imprecation, but a prophecy of what should come to pass.
14:2. Return, O Israel, to the Lord thy God: for thou hast fallen down
by thy iniquity.
14:3. Take with you words, and return to the Lord, and say to him: Take
away all iniquity, and receive the good: and we will render the calves
of our lips.
14:4. Assyria shall not save us, we will not ride upon horses, neither
will we say any more: The works of our hands are our gods: for thou
wilt have mercy on the fatherless that is in thee.
14:5. I will heal their breaches, I will love them freely: for my wrath
is turned away from them.
14:6. I will be as the dew, Israel shall spring as the lily, and his
root shall shoot forth as that of Libanus.
14:7. His branches shall spread, and his glory shall be as the olive
tree: and his smell as that of Libanus.
14:8. They shall be converted that sit under his shadow: they shall
live upon wheat, and they shall blossom as a vine: his memorial shall
be as the wine of Libanus.
14:9. Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols? I will
hear him, and I will make him flourish like a green fir tree: from me
is thy fruit found.
14:10. Who is wise, and he shall understand these things? prudent, and
he shall know these things? for the ways of the Lord are right, and the
just shall walk in them: but the transgressors shall fall in them.