Judah (the southern kingdom) looked to the prophetic doom coming on the north and were feeling smug. They were being led at the time by King Ahaz who had ironically forged an alliance with Assyria, the same nation that God would use to remove the northern tribes of Israel.
But God has a message to Judah also. They are not left out.
“Judah’s leaders are like those who move boundary stones. I will pour out my wrath on them like a flood of water.” (Hosea 5 v 10)
God points to those who through ambition try and grab more for themselves. They see what their neighbours have and they want it. So through ambitious corruption and cheating they move their borders so that inch by inch they take more ground.
Judah’s leaders were like that.
They were changing the borders between right and wrong. Making what was wrong less and giving more land to the right.
The church I was in when I was a boy believed more things were wrong than the church today. The purity list was a lot longer than today. Some of those things I think needed changing. The question is: does having a shorter list make the world a better place because they see Jesus more?
For Judah’s leaders it was actually taking the people away from God not nearer.
They too would receive judgment.
Missions Paul 