“How you have helped the powerless! How you have saved the person who has no strength!

How you have advised the one without wisdom, and abundantly revealed your insight!

She is harsh with her young, as if they were not hers; she is unconcerned about the uselessness of her labor.

For a long time Israel had no true God, or priest to instruct them, or law.

You are happy because you conquered Lo-Debar. You say, “Did we not conquer Karnaim by our own power?”

“I made myself available to those who did not ask for me; I appeared to those who did not look for me. I said, ‘Here I am! Here I am!’ to a nation that did not invoke my name.

Then I will plant her as my own in the land. I will have pity on ‘No Pity’ (Lo-Ruhamah). I will say to ‘Not My People’ (Lo-Ammi), ‘You are my people!’ And he will say, ‘You are my God!’”

But you banished the Lord’s priests, Aaron’s descendants, and the Levites, and appointed your own priests just as the surrounding nations do! Anyone who comes to consecrate himself with a young bull or seven rams becomes a priest of these fake gods!