The Lord Will Punish Israel

¹Rejoice not, O Israel!

Exult not like the peoples;

for you have played the whore, forsaking your God.

You have loved a prostitute's wages

on all threshing floors.

²Threshing floor and wine vat shall not feed them,

and the new wine shall fail them.

³They shall not remain in the land of the Lord,

but Ephraim shall return to Egypt,

and they shall eat unclean food in Assyria.

⁴They shall not pour drink offerings of wine to the Lord,

and their sacrifices shall not please him.

It shall be like mourners' bread to them;

all who eat of it shall be defiled;

for their bread shall be for their hunger only;

it shall not come to the house of the Lord.

⁵What will you do on the day of the appointed festival,

and on the day of the feast of the Lord?

⁶For behold, they are going away from destruction;

but Egypt shall gather them;

Memphis shall bury them.

Nettles shall possess their precious things of silver;

thorns shall be in their tents.

⁷The days of punishment have come;

the days of recompense have come;

Israel shall know it.

The prophet is a fool;

the man of the spirit is mad,

because of your great iniquity

and great hatred.

⁸The prophet is the watchman of Ephraim with my God;

yet a fowler's snare is on all his ways,

and hatred 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.

¹⁰Like grapes in the wilderness,

I found Israel.

Like the first fruit on the fig tree

in its first season,

I saw your fathers.

But they came to Baal-peor

and consecrated themselves to the thing of shame,

and became detestable like the thing they loved.

¹¹Ephraim's glory shall fly away like a bird—

no birth, no pregnancy, no conception!

¹²Even if they bring up children,

I will bereave them till none is left.

Woe to them

when I depart from them!

¹³Ephraim, as I have seen, was like a young palm1 planted in a meadow;

but Ephraim must lead his children out to slaughter.2

¹⁴Give them, O Lord—

what will you give?

Give them a miscarrying womb

and dry breasts.

¹⁵Every evil of theirs is in Gilgal;

there I began to hate them.

Because of the wickedness of their deeds

I will drive them out of my house.

I will love them no more;

all their princes are rebels.

¹⁶Ephraim is stricken;

their root is dried up;

they shall bear no fruit.

Even though they give birth,

I will put their beloved children to death.

¹⁷My God will reject them

because they have not listened to him;

they shall be wanderers among the nations.