1O Yisra’ĕl, do not rejoice with exultation like the peoples, for you have whored from your Elohim. You have loved a love-fee at all threshing-floors.

2Threshing floor and winepress shall not feed them, and new wine shall fail in her.

3They shall not dwell in the land of יהוה, but Ephrayim shall return to Mitsrayim, and eat unclean food in Ashshur.

4They do not pour wine offerings to יהוה, nor are their offerings pleasing to Him – it being like bread of mourners to them, all who eat it are defiled. For their bread is for their life, it does not come into the House of יהוה.

5What do you do for the appointed meeting, and in the day of the festival of יהוה?

6For look, they shall go because of destruction – Mitsrayim gathers them up, Moph buries them, nettles possess their valuables of silver, thorns are in their tents.

7The days of punishment have come, the days of retribution have come. Yisra’ĕl knows! The prophet is a fool, the ‘man of the Spirit’ is mad, because of the greatness of your crookedness, and great is the enmity.

8Elohim’s watchman over you, Ephrayim, is the prophet, but a trapper’s snare is in all his ways. Enmity is in the House of his Elohim.

9They have deeply corrupted themselves, as in the days of Gib‛ah. He remembers their crookedness, He punishes their sins.

10“I found Yisra’ĕl like grapes in the wilderness. I saw your fathers as the first-fruits on the fig tree in its beginning. They themselves have gone to Ba‛al Pe‛or, and separated themselves to shame, and became as abominable as that which they loved.

11“Ephrayim is like a bird, their esteem has flown away – no birth, and none with child, and no conception!

12“Though they bring up their children, I shall make them childless, without man. For it is woe to them when I turn away from them!

13“I have seen Ephrayim, like Tsor, planted in a pleasant place. But Ephrayim shall bring out his children to the murderer.”

14Give them, O יהוה – give what? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.

15“All their evil is in Gilgal, for there I have hated them. Because of the evil of their deeds I drive them from My house, no more do I love them. All their rulers are rebels.

16“Ephrayim has been smitten, their root has dried up, they yield no fruit. Even if they bear children, I shall put to death the precious ones of their womb.”

17My Elohim rejects them, because they have not obeyed Him, so that they become wanderers among the gentilesa!