1 R ejoice not, O Israel, with exultation as do the peoples, for you have played the harlot, forsaking your God. You have loved hire upon every threshing floor.

2 T he threshing floor and the winevat shall not feed them, and the new wine shall fail them.

3 T hey shall not remain in the Lord’s land, but Ephraim shall return to Egypt and they shall eat unclean food in Assyria.

4 T hey shall not pour out wine offerings to the Lord, neither shall they be pleasing to Him. Their sacrifices shall be to them as the bread of mourners; all who eat of them shall be defiled, for their bread shall be for their appetite; it shall not come into the house of the Lord.

5 W hat will you do on the day of the appointed solemn assembly or festival and on the day of the feast of the Lord ?

6 F or behold, they are gone away from devastation and destruction; Egypt shall gather them in; Memphis shall bury them. Their precious things of silver shall be in the possession of nettles; thorns shall be in their tents.

7 T he days of visitation and punishment have come; the days of recompense have come; Israel shall know it. The prophet is a crazed fool and the man who is inspired is mad or a fanatic, because of the abundance of your iniquity and because the enmity, hostility, and persecution are great.

8 E phraim was a watchman with my God; but he, that prophet, has become a fowler’s snare in all his ways. There is enmity, hostility, and persecution in the house of his God.

9 T hey have deeply corrupted themselves as in the days of Gibeah. The Lord will remember their iniquity; He will punish their sins.

10 I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness; I saw your fathers as the first ripe fruit on the fig tree in its first season, but they went to Baal-peor and consecrated themselves to that shameful thing, and they became detestable and loathsome like that which they loved.

11 A s for Ephraim, their glory shall fly away like a bird; there shall be no birth, no being with child, and no becoming pregnant.

12 T hough they bring up their children, yet will I bereave them so that not a man shall be left; yes, woe also to them when I look away and depart from them!

13 E phraim, as I have seen with Tyre, is planted in a pleasant place, but Ephraim shall bring out his children to the slayer.

14 G ive them, O Lord! what will You give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.

15 A ll their wickedness is focused in Gilgal, for there I hated them; for the wickedness of their doings I will drive them out of My house; I will love them no more; all their princes are rebels.

16 E phraim is smitten, their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit. Yes, though they bring forth, yet will I slay even their beloved children.

17 M y God will cast them away because they did not listen to and obey Him, and they shall be wanderers and fugitives among the nations.