5  ^vHear this, O priests!

Pay attention, O house of Israel!

Give ear, O house of the king!

For the judgment is for you;

for ^wyou have been a snare at Mizpah

and a net spread upon ^xTabor.

2  And ^ythe revolters ^zhave gone deep into slaughter,

but ^aI will discipline all of them.

3  ^bI know Ephraim,

and Israel is not hidden from me;

for now, O Ephraim, you have played the whore;

Israel is defiled.

4  ^cTheir deeds do not permit them

to return to their God.

For ^dthe spirit of whoredom is within them,

and they know not the Lord.

5  ^eThe pride of Israel testifies to his face;¹

Israel and ^fEphraim shall stumble in his guilt;

^fJudah also shall stumble with them.

6  ^gWith their flocks and herds they shall go

to seek the Lord,

^gbut they will not find him;

^hhe has withdrawn from them.

7  ⁱThey have dealt faithlessly with the Lord;

for they have borne alien children.

Now the new moon shall devour them with their fields.

8  ^jBlow the horn in ^kGibeah,

the trumpet in ^lRamah.

Sound the alarm at ^mBeth-aven;

we follow you,² O Benjamin!

9  Ephraim shall become a desolation

in the day of punishment;

among the tribes of Israel

I make known what is sure.

10  The princes of Judah have become

like ⁿthose who move the landmark;

upon them I will pour out

my wrath like water.

11  Ephraim is ^ooppressed, crushed in judgment,

because he was determined to go after filth.³

12  But I am ^plike a moth to Ephraim,

and ^plike dry rot to the house of Judah.

13  When Ephraim saw his sickness,

and Judah ^qhis wound,

then Ephraim went ^rto Assyria,

and sent to the great king.⁴

^sBut he is not able to cure you

or heal ^qyour wound.

14  For I will be ^tlike a lion to ^uEphraim,

and like a young lion to the house of ^uJudah.

^vI, even I, will tear and go away;

I will carry off, and no one shall rescue.

15  ^wI will return again to my place,

until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face,

and ^xin their distress earnestly seek me.

6  “Come, let us ^yreturn to the Lord;

for ^zhe has torn us, that he may heal us;

he has struck us down, and ^ahe will bind us up.

2  After two days ^bhe will revive us;

on the third day he will raise us up,

that we may live before him.

3  ^cLet us know; ^clet us press on to know the Lord;

^dhis going out is sure as the dawn;

he will come to us ^eas the showers,

^fas the spring rains that water the earth.”

4  What shall I do with you, ^gO ^hEphraim?

What shall I do with you, O ^hJudah?

Your love is ⁱlike a morning cloud,

ⁱlike the dew that goes early away.

5  Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets;

I have slain them ^jby the words of my mouth,

and my judgment goes forth as the light.

6  For ^kI desire steadfast love¹ and not sacrifice,

^lthe knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

7  But ^mlike Adam they ⁿtransgressed the covenant;

^othere they dealt faithlessly with me.

8  ^pGilead is a city of evildoers,

^qtracked with blood.

9  As robbers ^rlie in wait for a man,

so the priests band together;

they murder on the way to ^sShechem;

they commit villainy.

10  In the house of Israel I have seen a horrible thing;

^tEphraim’s whoredom is there; ^uIsrael is defiled.

11  For you also, O ^uJudah, ^va harvest is appointed.

When ^wI restore the fortunes of my people,

7  ^xwhen I would heal Israel,

the iniquity of Ephraim is revealed,

and the evil deeds of ^ySamaria,

for ^zthey deal falsely;

the thief breaks in,

and the bandits raid outside.

2  But they do not consider

that ^aI remember all their evil.

Now ^btheir deeds surround them;

^cthey are before my face.

3  By their evil ^dthey make ^dthe king glad,

and the princes by their treachery.

4  ^eThey are all adulterers;

they are like a heated oven

whose baker ceases to stir the fire,

from the kneading of the dough

until it is leavened.

5  On the day of ^four king, the princes

became sick with the heat of wine;

he stretched out his hand with mockers.

6  For with hearts like an oven ^gthey approach their intrigue;

all night their anger smolders;

in the morning it blazes like a flaming fire.

7  All of them are hot as an oven,

and they devour their rulers.

All ^htheir kings ⁱhave fallen,

and none of them calls upon me.

8  Ephraim ^jmixes himself with the peoples;

Ephraim is a cake not turned.

9  ^kStrangers devour his strength,

and ^lhe knows it not;

gray hairs are sprinkled upon him,

and ^lhe knows it not.

10  ^mThe pride of Israel testifies to his face;¹

ⁿyet they do not return to the Lord their God,

nor seek him, for all this.

11  Ephraim is like a dove,

^osilly and without sense,

calling to ^pEgypt, going to ^qAssyria.

12  As they go, ^rI will spread over them my net;

I will bring them down like birds of the heavens;

^sI will discipline them ^taccording to the report made to their congregation.

13  ^uWoe to them, for they have strayed from me!

Destruction to them, for they have rebelled against me!

^vI would redeem them,

but ^wthey speak lies against me.

14  ^xThey do not cry to me from the heart,

but ^ythey wail upon their beds;

for grain and wine they gash themselves;

they rebel against me.

15  Although ^zI trained and strengthened their arms,

yet they devise evil against me.

16  They ^areturn, but not upward;²

they are ^blike a treacherous bow;

their princes shall fall by the sword

because of ^cthe insolence of their tongue.

This shall be their derision ^din the land of Egypt.

8  Set ^ethe trumpet to your lips!

One ^flike a vulture is over the house of the Lord,

because ^gthey have transgressed my covenant

and rebelled against my law.

2  To me they cry,

^h“My God, we—Israel—know you.”

3  Israel has spurned the good;

the enemy shall pursue him.

4  ⁱThey made kings, ^jbut not through me.

They set up princes, but I knew it not.

With their silver and gold they made idols

for their own destruction.

5  ^kI have¹ spurned your calf, O Samaria.

My anger burns against them.

^lHow long will they be incapable of innocence?

6  For it is from Israel;

a craftsman made it;

it is not God.

^kThe calf of Samaria

^mshall be broken to pieces.²

7  For ⁿthey sow the wind,

and they shall reap the whirlwind.

The standing grain has no heads;

it shall yield no flour;

if it were to yield,

^ostrangers would devour it.

8  ^pIsrael is swallowed up;

already they are among the nations

as ^qa useless vessel.

9  For ^rthey have gone up to Assyria,

^sa wild donkey wandering alone;

Ephraim has hired lovers.

10  Though they hire allies among the nations,

I will soon gather them up.

And ^tthe king and princes ^ushall soon writhe

because of the tribute.

11  Because Ephraim ^vhas multiplied altars for sinning,

they have become to him altars for sinning.

12  ^wWere I to write for him my laws by the ten thousands,

they would be regarded as a strange thing.

13  As for my sacrificial offerings,

^xthey sacrifice meat and eat it,

but the Lord does not accept them.

^yNow he will remember their iniquity

and punish their sins;

^zthey shall return to Egypt.

14  For ^aIsrael has forgotten ^bhis Maker

and ^cbuilt palaces,

and ^aJudah has multiplied fortified cities;

so ^dI will send a fire upon his cities,

and it shall devour her strongholds.

9  Rejoice not, O Israel!

Exult not like the peoples;

^efor you have played the whore, forsaking your God.

^fYou have loved a prostitute’s wages

on all threshing floors.

2  ^gThreshing floor and wine vat shall not feed them,

and ^gthe new wine shall fail them.

3  They shall not remain in ^hthe land of the Lord,

but ⁱEphraim shall return to Egypt,

and ^jthey shall eat unclean food in Assyria.

4  ^kThey shall not pour drink offerings of wine to the Lord,

^land their sacrifices shall not please him.

It shall be like ^mmourners’ bread to them;

all who eat of it shall be defiled;

for their bread shall be for their hunger only;

ⁿit shall not come to the house of the Lord.

5  ^oWhat will you do on the day of the appointed festival,

and on the day of the feast of the Lord?

6  For behold, they are going away from destruction;

but ^pEgypt shall gather them;

Memphis shall bury them.

Nettles shall possess ^qtheir precious things of silver;

^rthorns shall be in their tents.

7  ^sThe days of punishment have come;

the days of recompense have come;

Israel shall know it.

^tThe prophet is a fool;

the man of the spirit is mad,

because of your great iniquity

and great hatred.

8  The prophet is ^uthe watchman of Ephraim with my God;

yet ^va fowler’s snare is on all his ways,

and hatred in the house of his God.

9  ^wThey have deeply corrupted themselves

as ^xin the days of Gibeah:

^whe will remember their iniquity;

he will punish their sins.

10  Like grapes in the wilderness,

^yI found Israel.

Like the first fruit on the fig tree

in its first season,

I saw your fathers.

But ^zthey came to Baal-peor

and ^aconsecrated themselves to the thing of shame,

and ^bbecame detestable like the thing they loved.

11  Ephraim’s ^cglory shall fly away like a bird—

^dno birth, no pregnancy, no conception!

12  ^eEven if they bring up children,

I will bereave them till none is left.

^fWoe to them

when ^gI depart from them!

13  Ephraim, ^has I have seen, was like a young palm¹ planted in a meadow;

but ^eEphraim must lead his children out to slaughter.²

14  Give them, O Lord—

what will you give?

Give them ⁱa miscarrying womb

and dry breasts.

15  Every evil of theirs is in ^jGilgal;

there I began to hate them.

Because of the wickedness of their deeds

I will drive them out of my house.

I will love them no more;

all ^ktheir princes are ^lrebels.

16  Ephraim is stricken;

^mtheir root is dried up;

they shall bear no fruit.

Even ⁿthough they give birth,

^eI will put their beloved children to death.

17  ^oMy God will reject them

because they have not listened to him;

^pthey shall be wanderers among the nations.