What refrain links the disasters recalled to Israel?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

Wealthy oppression and shrine transgressions accompany repeated failures to return and a summons to meet God.

Chapter breakdown

Samaria's fat kine oppress the needy, crush the poor and ask their masters for drink. The edition explains great ones living in wealth. God swears that they will be lifted on pikes, with remnants in boiling pots, go out through breaches and be cast into Armon. The note calls Armon a foreign country, interpreted by some as Armenia. Bethel and Galgal are ironically invited to wickedness and multiplied transgressions, with morning victims, tithes in three days, leavened praise sacrifice and proclaimed free offerings.

The Lord recounts want of bread and dull teeth without return. Rain was withheld three months before harvest, falling on one city or piece and not another. Two or three cities sought water from one without being filled, yet did not return. Burning wind, mildew and palmerworm consumed gardens, vines, olives and figs without return. Death in Egypt's way, young men slain by sword, captive horses and camp stench again brought no return. Some were destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrha and others like a brand plucked from fire, yet they did not return.

After these things Israel must prepare to meet its God. He forms mountains, creates wind, declares his word to humanity, makes morning mist and walks earth's heights: the Lord God of hosts. Pikes are not replaced with hooks, three days with three years, nor word with hidden thoughts. The five repeated failures to return are recorded without a universal explanation of every disaster's purpose.

The story inside

The oath names pikes and boiling pots. The tithes are named in three days. Five disaster passages repeat the lack of return.

Lessons worth keeping

1
The oath names pikes and boiling pots.
2
The tithes are named in three days.
3
Five disaster passages repeat the lack of return.

Test your recall

Which acts of the Creator close the chapter?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 100652–100656
4:1. Hear this word, ye fat kine that are in the mountains of Samaria: you that oppress the needy, and crush the poor: that say to your masters: Bring, and we will drink. Fat kine.... He means the great ones that lived in plenty and wealth.
Lines 100667–100673
4:4. Come ye to Bethel, and do wickedly: to Galgal, and multiply transgressions: and bring in the morning your victims, your tithes in three days. 4:5. And offer a sacrifice of praise with leaven: and call free offerings, and proclaim it: for so you would do, O children of Israel, saith the Lord God.
Lines 100675–100677
4:6. Whereupon I also have given you dulness of teeth in all your cities, and want of bread in all your places: yet you have not returned to me, saith the Lord.
Lines 100700–100707
4:12. Therefore I will do these things to thee, O Israel: and after I shall have done these things to thee, be prepared to meet thy God, O Israel. 4:13. For behold he that formeth the mountains and createth the wind, and declareth his word to man, he that maketh the morning mist, and walketh upon the high places of the earth: the Lord the God of hosts is his name.