5. I hate the gold bull worshipped by the people of the city of Samaria. I am furious with them. How long will it be before they give up their idolatry?
6. An Israelite craftsman made the idol, and it is not a god at all! The gold bull worshipped in Samaria will be smashed to pieces!
7. When they sow the wind, they will reap a storm! A field of corn that doesn't ripen can never produce any bread. But even if it did, foreigners would eat it up.
8. Israel has become like any other nation and is as useless as a broken pot.
9. Stubborn as wild donkeys, the people of Israel go their own way. They have gone off to seek help from Assyria, and have paid other nations to protect them.
10. But now I am going to gather them together and punish them. Soon they will writhe in pain, when the emperor of Assyria oppresses them.
11. “The more altars the people of Israel build for removing sin, the more places they have for sinning!
12. I write down countless teachings for the people, but they reject them as strange and foreign.