| New Living Translation | King James Bible |
| 1“I want to heal Israel, but its sins are too great. Samaria is filled with liars. Thieves are on the inside and bandits on the outside! | 1When I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria: for they commit falsehood; and the thief cometh in, and the troop of robbers spoileth without. |
| 2Its people don’t realize that I am watching them. Their sinful deeds are all around them, and I see them all. | 2And they consider not in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness: now their own doings have beset them about; they are before my face. |
| 3“The people entertain the king with their wickedness, and the princes laugh at their lies. | 3They make the king glad with their wickedness, and the princes with their lies. |
| 4They are all adulterers, always aflame with lust. They are like an oven that is kept hot while the baker is kneading the dough. | 4They are all adulterers, as an oven heated by the baker, who ceaseth from raising after he hath kneaded the dough, until it be leavened. |
| 5On royal holidays, the princes get drunk with wine, carousing with those who mock them. | 5In the day of our king the princes have made him sick with bottles of wine; he stretched out his hand with scorners. |
| 6Their hearts are like an oven blazing with intrigue. Their plot smolders through the night, and in the morning it breaks out like a raging fire. | 6For they have made ready their heart like an oven, whiles they lie in wait: their baker sleepeth all the night; in the morning it burneth as a flaming fire. |
| 7Burning like an oven, they consume their leaders. They kill their kings one after another, and no one cries to me for help. | 7They are all hot as an oven, and have devoured their judges; all their kings are fallen: there is none among them that calleth unto me. |
| 8“The people of Israel mingle with godless foreigners, making themselves as worthless as a half-baked cake! | 8Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people; Ephraim is a cake not turned. |
| 9Worshiping foreign gods has sapped their strength, but they don’t even know it. Their hair is gray, but they don’t realize they’re old and weak. | 9Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not: yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not. |
| 10Their arrogance testifies against them, yet they don’t return to the LORD their God or even try to find him. | 10And the pride of Israel testifieth to his face: and they do not return to the LORD their God, nor seek him for all this. |
| 11“The people of Israel have become like silly, witless doves, first calling to Egypt, then flying to Assyria for help. | 11Ephraim also is like a silly dove without heart: they call to Egypt, they go to Assyria. |
| 12But as they fly about, I will throw my net over them and bring them down like a bird from the sky. I will punish them for all the evil they do. | 12When they shall go, I will spread my net upon them; I will bring them down as the fowls of the heaven; I will chastise them, as their congregation hath heard. |
| 13“What sorrow awaits those who have deserted me! Let them die, for they have rebelled against me. I wanted to redeem them, but they have told lies about me. | 13Woe unto them! for they have fled from me: destruction unto them! because they have transgressed against me: though I have redeemed them, yet they have spoken lies against me. |
| 14They do not cry out to me with sincere hearts. Instead, they sit on their couches and wail. They cut themselves, begging foreign gods for grain and new wine, and they turn away from me. | 14And they have not cried unto me with their heart, when they howled upon their beds: they assemble themselves for corn and wine, and they rebel against me. |
| 15I trained them and made them strong, yet now they plot evil against me. | 15Though I have bound and strengthened their arms, yet do they imagine mischief against me. |
| 16They look everywhere except to the Most High. They are as useless as a crooked bow. Their leaders will be killed by their enemies because of their insolence toward me. Then the people of Egypt will laugh at them. | 16They return, but not to the most High: they are like a deceitful bow: their princes shall fall by the sword for the rage of their tongue: this shall be their derision in the land of Egypt. |
| Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. | King James Bible, text courtesy of BibleProtector.com. |
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