Therefore I will make Samaria a heap in the open country,
a place for planting vineyards,
and I will pour down her stones into the valley
and uncover her foundations.
All her carved images shall be beaten to pieces,
all her wages shall be burned with fire,
and all her idols I will lay waste,
for from the fee of a prostitute she gathered them,
and to the fee of a prostitute they shall return.
For this I will lament and wail;
I will go stripped and naked;
I will make lamentation like the jackals,
and mourning like the ostriches.
For her wound is incurable,
and it has come to Judah;
it has reached to the gate of my people,
to Jerusalem.
Comment: Samaria’s destruction is to be great. Instead of a city proud of its wealth it will look like a heap of stones gathered up to clear the area to plant a vineyard. At the very centre of the coming judgement is idolatry and prostitution. It is idol worship committed by both men and women. There were fertility aspects and no doubt just the pleasure of sex but the charged fees had made certain people wealthy. The wealthy coverings (gold and silver) would be stripped off the idols and shipped back to the countries from which the idols had come and the underlying wooden shapes destroyed. The prophet doesn’t like the message which has been given to him to proclaim. It brings him to a naked, lamenting mess, moaning like an animal in distress. His sadness goes even deeper, because it doesn’t stop at the border, Jerusalem has been caught up in the distressing sinful turning from the God who has done so much for them! It seems as if the land is to be invaded, overcome and pillaged, but behind it all is the Hand of God.
Prayer: Help us to remember that Your judgement comes because of our sin.
As I read it! 
Thank you Barry for your comments on this passage. Prophets of old always had a message of judgement for the people of their day. And the people did not want to hear the message which the Prophet brought from God. We self-willed, selfish humans don’t want to hear what God has to say to us. We want to “have our cake, and eat it too.” Unfortunately God’s ways are higher than our ways, and His thoughts than our thoughts. We need to have our hearts changed, we need to be washed in the blood of Jesus, and given the robes of righteousness, and accept God’s love, forgiveness, and grace. God bless you.
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