Israel’s Punishment

1Thou shalt not rejoice, O Israel; exult not as the peoples: for thou didst commit fornication from thy God; thou didst love a gift upon all the threshing-floors of grain.

2The threshing-floor and the winepress shall not feed them, and the new wine shall fail in her.

3They shall not dwell in the land of Jehovah; and Ephraim turned back to Egypt, and in Assur they shall eat the unclean thing.

4They shall not pour out wine to Jehovah, and they shall not be pleasant to him: their sacrifices as the bread of sorrows to them; all eating it shall be defiled: for their bread for their soul shall not come in to the house of Jehovah.

5What will ye do for the day of appointment, and for the day of the festival of Jehovah?

6For behold, they went from destruction: Egypt shall gather them together; Memphis shall bury them: the desire for their silver, the prickly weed shall possess them: the thorn in their tents.

7The days of oversight came, the days of recompense came; Israel knew: the prophet is foolish, the man of the spirit, raving, for the multitude of thine iniquity and great destruction.

8The watchman of Ephraim with God: the prophet the snare of a fowler upon all his ways; destruction in the house of his God.

9They made deep, they were corrupted as the days of the hill: he will remember their iniquity, he will review their sins.

10I found Israel as grapes in the desert; as the first fruit in the fig tree in her beginning I saw your fathers: they went to Baal-Peor, and they will separate themselves to shame, and their abominable things will be according to their love.

11Ephraim shall fly away as a bird, their glory of birth and of the womb and of conception.

12But if they shall bring up their sons and I bereaved them from man: but also wo to them in my departing from them.

13Ephraim, as I saw for Tyre, was planted in a habitation: and Ephraim to bring forth his sons to him slaying.

14Give to them, O Jehovah: what wilt thou give? give to them a miscarrying womb, and dry breasts.

15All their wickedness in Gilgal: for there I hated them: for the evil of their doings I will drive them out from my house, I will not add to love them: all their chiefs are turning away.

16Ephraim was smitten, their root was dried up, they shall not make fruit: also if they shall bring forth, and I destroyed the desires of their womb.

17God will reject them, for they heard not to him: and they will be wandering about among the nations.