¹ When 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.

² And 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 They make the king glad with their wickedness, and the princes with their lies.

⁴ They are all adulterers, as an oven heated by the baker, who ceaseth from raising after he hath kneeded the dough, until it be leavened.

⁵ In the day of our king the princes have made him sick with bottles of wine; he stretched out his hand with scorners.

⁶ For 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.

⁷ They 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 Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people; Ephraim is a cake not turned.

⁹ Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not: yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not.

¹⁰ And 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 Ephraim also is like a silly dove without heart: they call to Egypt, they go to Assyria.

¹² When 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 Woe 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.

¹⁴ And 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.

¹⁵ Though I have bound and strengthened their arms, yet do they imagine mischief against me.

¹⁶ They 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.

³⁵ But were mingled among the heathen, and learned their works.

¹ Behold, the LORD's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:

² But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.

³ For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness.

⁴ None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity.

⁵ They hatch cockatrice' eggs, and weave the spider's web: he that eateth of their eggs dieth, and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper.

⁶ Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works: their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands.

⁷ Their feet run to evil, and they make hast to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths.

⁸ The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace.

⁹ Therefore is judgment far from us, neither doth justice overtake us: we wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, but we walk in darkness.

¹⁰ We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noonday as in the night; we are in desolate places as dead men.

¹¹ We roar all like bears, and mourn sore like doves: we look for judgment, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far off from us.

¹² For our transgressions are multiplied before thee, and our sins testify against us: for our transgressions are with us; and as for our iniquities, we know them;

¹³ In transgressing and lying against the LORD, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.

¹⁴ And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.

¹⁵ Yea, truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey: and the LORD saw it, and it displeased him that there was no judgment.

¹⁶ And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation unto him; and his righteousness, it sustained him.

¹⁷ For he put on righteousness as a breastplate, and an helmet of salvation upon his head; and he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloke.

¹⁸ According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay, fury to his adversaries, recompence to his enemies; to the islands he will repay recompence.

¹⁹ So shall they fear the name of the LORD from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him.

²⁰ And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the LORD.

²¹ As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the LORD; My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the LORD, from henceforth and for ever.