¹ `Unto thy mouth -- a trumpet, As an eagle against the house of Jehovah, Because they transgressed My covenant, And against My law they have rebelled.

² To Me they cry, `My God, we -- Israel -- have known Thee.'

³ Cast off good hath Israel, an enemy pursueth him.

⁴ They have made kings, and not by Me, They have made princes, and I have not known, Their silver and their gold they have made to them idols, So that they are cut off.

⁵ Cast off hath thy calf, O Samaria, Burned hath Mine anger against them, Till when are they not capable of purity?

⁶ For even it [is] of Israel; an artificer made it, And it [is] not God, For the calf of Samaria is fragments!

⁷ For wind they sow, and a hurricane they reap, Stalk it hath none -- a shoot not yielding grain, If so be it yield -- strangers do swallow it up.

⁸ Israel hath been swallowed up, Now they have been among nations, As a vessel in which is no delight.

⁹ For they -- they have gone up [to] Asshur, A wild ass alone by himself [is] Ephraim, They have hired lovers!

¹⁰ Also though they hire among nations, Now I gather them, and they are pained a little, From the burden of a king of princes.

¹¹ Because Ephraim did multiply altars to sin, They have been to him altars to sin.

¹² I write for him numerous things of My law, As a strange thing they have been reckoned.

¹³ The sacrifices of Mine offerings! They sacrifice flesh, and they eat, Jehovah hath not accepted them, Now doth He remember their iniquity, And inspect their sin, They -- [to] Egypt they turn back.

¹⁴ And forget doth Israel his Maker, and buildeth temples, And Judah hath multiplied cities of defence, And I have sent a fire into his cities, And it hath consumed their palaces!

⁵ Oholah played the prostitute when she was mine; and she doted on her lovers, on the Assyrians [her] neighbors,

⁶ who were clothed with blue, governors and rulers, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding on horses.

⁷ She bestowed her prostitution on them, the choicest men of Assyria all of them; and on whoever she doted, with all their idols she defiled herself.

⁸ Neither has she left her prostitution since [the days of] Egypt; for in her youth they lay with her, and they handled the bosom of her virginity; and they poured out their prostitution on her.

⁹ Therefore I delivered her into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of the Assyrians, on whom she doted.

¹⁰ These uncovered her nakedness; they took her sons and her daughters; and her they killed with the sword: and she became a byword among women; for they executed judgments on her.

¹¹ Her sister Oholibah saw this, yet was she more corrupt in her doting than she, and in her prostitution which were more than the prostitution of her sister.

¹² She doted on the Assyrians, governors and rulers, [her] neighbors, clothed most gorgeously, horsemen riding on horses, all of them desirable young men.

¹³ I saw that she was defiled; they both took one way.

¹⁴ She increased her prostitution; for she saw men portrayed on the wall, the images of the Chaldeans portrayed with vermilion,

¹⁵ dressed with girdles on their waists, with flowing turbans on their heads, all of them princes to look on, after the likeness of the Babylonians in Chaldea, the land of their birth.

¹⁶ As soon as she saw them she doted on them, and sent messengers to them into Chaldea.

¹⁷ The Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their prostitution, and she was polluted with them, and her soul was alienated from them.

¹⁸ So she uncovered her prostitution, and uncovered her nakedness: then my soul was alienated from her, like as my soul was alienated from her sister.

¹⁹ Yet she multiplied her prostitution, remembering the days of her youth, in which she had played the prostitute in the land of Egypt.

²⁰ She doted on their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of donkeys, and whose issue is like the issue of horses.

²¹ Thus you called to memory the lewdness of your youth, in the handling of your bosom by the Egyptians for the breasts of your youth.