The First Lesson

But since your days in Egypt I have been the Lord your God you do not know any god but me, any saviour other than me. I cared for you in the wilderness, in a land of burning heat. They were fed and satisfied, and, once satisfied, they grew proud, and so they deserted me. Now I shall be like a panther to them, I shall prowl like a leopard by the wayside I shall come on them like a she-bear robbed of her cubs and tear their ribs apart, like a lioness I shall devour them on the spot, like a wild beast I shall rip them up

I have destroyed you, Israel who is there to help you? Where now is your king that he may save you, in all your cities where are your rulers? Give me a king and princes,' you said. I gave you a king in my anger, and in my wrath I took him away

Ephraim's guilt is tied up in a scroll, his sins are kept on record. When the pangs of his birth came over his mother, he showed himself a senseless child for at the proper time he could not present himself at the mouth of the womb. Shall I deliver him from the grave? Shall I redeem him from death?