1Do not rejoice, Israel, do not exult like the peoples, for you have played the whore, forsaking your God. You have loved the harlot’s wages on every threshing floor of grain.
2Threshing floor and winepress will not feed them, and the new wine will fail her.
3They will not dwell in Yahweh’s land; Ephraim will return to Egypt, and in Assyria they will eat unclean food.
4They will not pour out wine offerings to Yahweh, nor will their sacrifices please him. Like the bread of mourners it will be to them; all who eat it will be defiled. For their bread will be only for their own hunger; it will not come into the house of Yahweh.
5What will you do on the day of the appointed feast, on the day of the festival of Yahweh?
6For behold, they have gone away from devastation; Egypt will gather them, Memphis will bury them. Nettles will possess their treasures of silver; thorns will be in their tents.
7The days of reckoning have come; the days of recompense have come. Israel will know it. The prophet is a fool, the man of the spirit is mad—because of your great iniquity and great hostility.
8Ephraim is a watchman with my God; the prophet is a fowler’s snare on all his ways, hostility in the house of his God.
9They have gone deep into corruption as in the days of Gibeah. He will remember their iniquity; he will punish their sins.
10Like grapes in the wilderness I found Israel; like the first fruit on the fig tree in its first season I saw your fathers. But they came to Baal-peor and consecrated themselves to Shame, and became detestable like the thing they loved.
11Ephraim—their glory will fly away like a bird: no birth, no womb, no conception.
12Even if they raise their children, I will bereave them till no one is left. Yes, woe to them when I turn away from them!
13Ephraim, as I have seen it, was planted like Tyre in a meadow; yet Ephraim must lead out his children to the slayer.
14Give them, Yahweh—what will you give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dried-up breasts.
15All their evil is at Gilgal, for there I came to hate them. Because of the evil of their deeds I will drive them out of my house. I will no longer love them; all their officials are rebels.
16Ephraim is struck down; their root is dried up; they yield no fruit. Even if they give birth, I will put to death the darlings of their womb.
17My God will reject them because they have not listened to him, and they will be wanderers among the nations.
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