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¹Hear this, priests! Pay attention, house of Israel! Listen, royal house! For the judgment applies to you because you have been a snare at Mizpah and a net spread out on Tabor.

²Rebels are deeply involved in slaughter; I will be a punishment for all of them.

³I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hidden from me. For now, Ephraim, you have acted promiscuously; Israel is defiled.

⁴Their actions do not allow them to return to their God, for a spirit of promiscuity is among them, and they do not know the LORD.

⁵Israel’s arrogance testifies against them. Both Israel and Ephraim stumble because of their iniquity; even Judah will stumble with them.

⁶They go with their flocks and herds to seek the LORD but do not find him; he has withdrawn from them.

⁷They betrayed the LORD; indeed, they gave birth to illegitimate children. Now the New Moon will devour them along with their fields.

⁸Blow the horn in Gibeah, the trumpet in Ramah; raise the war cry in Beth-aven: Look behind you, Benjamin!

⁹Ephraim will become a desolation on the day of punishment; I announce what is certain among the tribes of Israel.

¹⁰The princes of Judah are like those who move boundary markers; I will pour out my fury on them like water.

¹¹Ephraim is oppressed, crushed in judgment, for he is determined to follow what is worthless.

¹²So I am like rot to Ephraim and like decay to the house of Judah.

¹³When Ephraim saw his sickness and Judah his wound, Ephraim went to Assyria and sent a delegation to the great king. But he cannot cure you or heal your wound.

¹⁴For I am like a lion to Ephraim and like a young lion to the house of Judah. Yes, I will tear them to pieces and depart. I will carry them off, and no one can rescue them.

¹⁵I will depart and return to my place until they recognize their guilt and seek my face; they will search for me in their distress.

¹Come, let us return to the LORD. For he has torn us, and he will heal us; he has wounded us, and he will bind up our wounds.

²He will revive us after two days, and on the third day he will raise us up so we can live in his presence.

³Let us strive to know the LORD. His appearance is as sure as the dawn. He will come to us like the rain, like the spring showers that water the land.

⁴What am I going to do with you, Ephraim? What am I going to do with you, Judah? Your love is like the morning mist and like the early dew that vanishes.

⁵This is why I have used the prophets to cut them down; I have killed them with the words from my mouth. My judgment strikes like lightning.

⁶For I desire faithful love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

⁷But they, like Adam, have violated the covenant; there they have betrayed me.

⁸Gilead is a city of evildoers, tracked with bloody footprints.

⁹Like raiders who wait in ambush for someone, a band of priests murders on the road to Shechem. They commit atrocities.

¹⁰I have seen something horrible in the house of Israel: Ephraim’s promiscuity is there; Israel is defiled.

¹¹A harvest is also appointed for you, Judah. When I return my people from captivity,

¹when I heal Israel, the iniquity of Ephraim and the crimes of Samaria will be exposed. For they practice fraud; a thief breaks in; a raiding party pillages outside.

²But they never consider that I remember all their evil. Now their actions are all around them; they are right in front of my face.

³They please the king with their evil, the princes with their lies.

⁴All of them commit adultery; they are like an oven heated by a baker who stops stirring the fire from the kneading of the dough until it is leavened.

⁵On the day of our king, the princes are sick with the heat of wine  — there is a conspiracy with traitors.

⁶For they — their hearts like an oven — draw him into their oven. Their anger smolders all night; in the morning it blazes like a flaming fire.

⁷All of them are as hot as an oven, and they consume their rulers. All their kings fall; not one of them calls on me.

⁸Ephraim has allowed himself to get mixed up with the nations. Ephraim is unturned bread baked on a griddle.

⁹Foreigners consume his strength, but he does not notice. Even his hair is streaked with gray, but he does not notice.

¹⁰Israel’s arrogance testifies against them, yet they do not return to the LORD their God, and for all this, they do not seek him.

¹¹So Ephraim has become like a silly, senseless dove; they call to Egypt, and they go to Assyria.

¹²As they are going, I will spread my net over them; I will bring them down like birds of the sky. I will discipline them in accordance with the news that reaches their assembly.

¹³Woe to them, for they fled from me; destruction to them, for they rebelled against me! Though I want to redeem them, they speak lies against me.

¹⁴They do not cry to me from their hearts; rather, they wail on their beds. They slash themselves for grain and new wine; they turn away from me.

¹⁵I trained and strengthened their arms, but they plot evil against me.

¹⁶They turn, but not to what is above; they are like a faulty bow. Their leaders will fall by the sword because of their insolent tongue. They will be ridiculed for this in the land of Egypt.

¹Put the horn to your mouth! One like an eagle comes against the house of the LORD, because they transgress my covenant and rebel against my law.

²Israel cries out to me, “My God, we know you!”

³Israel has rejected what is good; an enemy will pursue him.

⁴They have installed kings, but not through me. They have appointed leaders, but without my approval. They make their silver and gold into idols for themselves for their own destruction.

⁵Your calf-idol is rejected, Samaria. My anger burns against them. How long will they be incapable of innocence?

⁶For this thing is from Israel — a craftsman made it, and it is not God. The calf of Samaria will be smashed to bits!

⁷Indeed, they sow the wind and reap the whirlwind. There is no standing grain; what sprouts fails to yield flour. Even if they did, foreigners would swallow it up.

⁸Israel is swallowed up! Now they are among the nations like discarded pottery.

⁹For they have gone up to Assyria like a wild donkey going off on its own. Ephraim has paid for love.

¹⁰Even though they hire lovers among the nations, I will now round them up, and they will begin to decrease in number under the burden of the king and leaders.

¹¹When Ephraim multiplied his altars for sin, they became his altars for sinning.

¹²Though I were to write out for him ten thousand points of my instruction, they would be regarded as something strange.

¹³Though they offer sacrificial gifts and eat the flesh, the LORD does not accept them. Now he will remember their guilt and punish their sins; they will return to Egypt.

¹⁴Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces; Judah has also multiplied fortified cities. I will send fire on their cities, and it will consume their citadels.

¹Israel, do not rejoice jubilantly as the nations do, for you have acted promiscuously, leaving your God. You love the wages of a prostitute on every grain-threshing floor.

²Threshing floor and wine vat will not sustain them, and the new wine will fail them.

³They will not stay in the land of the LORD. Instead, Ephraim will return to Egypt, and they will eat unclean food in Assyria.

⁴They will not pour out their wine offerings to the LORD, and their sacrifices will not please him. Their food will be like the bread of mourners; all who eat it become defiled. For their bread will be for their appetites alone; it will not enter the house of the LORD.

⁵What will you do on a festival day, on the day of the LORD’s feast?

⁶For even if they flee from devastation, Egypt will gather them, and Memphis will bury them. Thistles will take possession of their precious silver; thorns will invade their tents.

⁷The days of punishment have come; the days of retribution have come. Let Israel recognize it! The prophet is a fool, and the inspired man is insane, because of the magnitude of your iniquity and hostility.

⁸Ephraim’s watchman is with my God. Yet the prophet encounters a bird trap on all his pathways. Hostility is in the house of his God!

⁹They have deeply corrupted themselves as in the days of Gibeah. He will remember their iniquity; he will punish their sins.

¹⁰I discovered Israel like grapes in the wilderness. I saw your fathers like the first fruit of the fig tree in its first season. But they went to Baal-peor, consecrated themselves to Shame, and became abhorrent, like the thing they loved.

¹¹Ephraim’s glory will fly away like a bird: no birth, no pregnancy, no conception.

¹²Even if they raise children, I will bereave them of each one. Yes, woe to them when I depart from them!

¹³I have seen Ephraim like Tyre, planted in a meadow, so Ephraim will bring out his children to the executioner.

¹⁴Give them, LORD  — What should you give? Give them a womb that miscarries and breasts that are dry!

¹⁵All their evil appears at Gilgal, for there I began to hate them. I will drive them from my house because of their evil, wicked actions. I will no longer love them; all their leaders are rebellious.

¹⁶Ephraim is struck down; their roots are withered; they cannot bear fruit. Even if they bear children, I will kill the precious offspring of their wombs.

¹⁷My God will reject them because they have not listened to him; they will become wanderers among the nations.