¹Do not rejoice, Israel, in joy like the peoples; for you have prostituted yourself away from your God; you have loved a prostitute's hire on every threshing floor of grain.

²Threshing floor and wine vat will not feed them; and new wine will fail her.

³They will not dwell in the land of Yahweh; Ephraim will return to Egypt, and in Assyria they will eat what is unclean.

⁴They will not pour out wine to Yahweh, and their sacrifices will not be pleasant to him; they will be like bread of sorrow for them; all who eat it make themselves unclean; for their bread is for their being; it will not come into the house of Yahweh.

⁵What will you do on the day of the appointed time, and on the day of the festival of Yahweh?

⁶For look, they have gone from devastation; Egypt will gather them, Memphis will bury them; the precious things of their silver, nettles will take possession of them; briers will be in their tents.

⁷The days of the punishment have come, the days of the requital have come; Israel will know it. The prophet is a fool, the man of the breath is driven mad, because of the multitude of your guilt and great animosity.

⁸Ephraim is a watchman with my God; the prophet is a fowler's trap on all his ways, animosity in the house of his God.

⁹They have deepened their corruption, as in the days of Gibeah; he will remember their guilt, he will punish their sins.

¹⁰Like grapes in the wilderness I found Israel; like an early fig on a fig tree, at its beginning I saw your fathers. They came to Baal Peor and devoted themselves to shame, and became detestable things, like their love.

¹¹Ephraim: like a bird their weightiness will fly away, from childbearing, from the womb, and from conception.

¹²Even if they make their sons great, I will bereave them, away from mankind; for woe to them too, when I turn aside from them.

¹³Ephraim, as I have seen, was like Tyre, planted in a pasture; but Ephraim will bring out his sons to the one who kills.

¹⁴Give them, Yahweh—what will you give? Give them a miscarrying womb and shriveled breasts.

¹⁵All their evil is in Gilgal, for there I hated them; because of the evil of their deeds I will drive them out of my house; I will not love them again; all their officials are stubborn.

¹⁶Ephraim is struck, their root has dried up; they will yield no fruit. Even if they give birth, I will put to death the precious ones of their womb.

¹⁷My God will reject them, for they have not listened to him; they will be wanderers among the nations.