1. when I would have healed Israel,The guilt of Ephraim was revealed,the wickedness of Samaria:They practiced falsehood.Thieves break in,bandits roam outside.
2. Yet they do not call to mindthat I remember all their wickedness.Now their crimes surround them,present to my sight.
3. With their wickedness they make the king rejoice,the princes too, with their treacherous deeds.
4. They are all adulterers,like a blazing oven,Which the baker quits stoking,after the dough’s kneading until its rising.
5. On the day of our king,they made the princes sick with poisoned wine;he extended his hand to the scoffers.
6. For they draw near in ambushwith their hearts like an oven.All the night their anger sleeps;in the morning it flares like a blazing fire.
7. They are all heated like ovens,and consume their rulers.All their kings have fallen;none of them calls upon me.
8. Ephraim is mixed with the nations,Ephraim is an unturned cake.
9. Strangers have consumed his strength,but he does not know it;Gray hairs are strewn on his head,but he takes no notice of it.
10. The arrogance of Israel bears witness against him;yet they do not return to the Lord, their God,nor seek him, despite all this.
11. Ephraim is like a dove,silly and senseless;They call upon Egypt,they go to Assyria.
12. When they go I will spread my net around them,like birds in the air I will bring them down.I will chastise them when I hear of their assembly.
13. Woe to them, for they have strayed from me!Ruin to them, for they have rebelled against me!Though I wished to redeem them,they spoke lies against me.
14. They have not cried to me from their heartswhen they wailed upon their beds;For wheat and wine they lacerated themselves;they rebelled against me.
15. Though I trained and strengthened their arms,yet they devised evil against me.
16. They have again become useless,they have been like a treacherous bow.Their princes shall fall by the swordbecause of the insolence of their tongues;thus they shall be mocked in the land of Egypt.