¹ Rejoice not, Israel, exultingly, as the peoples; for thou hast gone a whoring from thy God, thou hast loved harlot's hire upon every corn-floor.

² The floor and the winepress shall not feed them, and the new wine shall fail her.

³ They shall not dwell in Jehovah's land; but Ephraim shall return to Egypt, and in Assyria shall they eat that which is unclean.

⁴ They shall pour out no [offerings of] wine to Jehovah, neither shall their sacrifices be pleasing unto him: they shall be unto them as the bread of mourners; all that eat thereof shall be defiled: for their bread shall be for themselves; it shall not come into the house of Jehovah.

⁵ What will ye do in the day of assembly, and in the day of the feast of Jehovah?

⁶ For behold, they are gone away because of destruction: Egypt shall gather them up, Moph shall bury them: their pleasant things of silver, nettles shall possess them; thorns shall be in their tents.

⁷ The days of visitation are come; the days of recompence are come: Israel shall know [it]: the prophet is a fool, the inspired man is mad, because of the greatness of thine iniquity, and the great enmity.

⁸ Is Ephraim a watchman with my God? [nay] the prophet is a fowler's snare on all his ways, enmity in the house of his God.

⁹ They have deeply corrupted themselves as in the days of Gibeah. He will remember their iniquity, he will visit their sins.

¹⁰ I found Israel as grapes in the wilderness; as first-ripe fruit on the fig-tree, I saw your fathers at the beginning: they went to Baal-Peor, and separated themselves unto that shame, and became abominations like their lover.

¹¹ As for Ephraim, their glory shall fly away as a bird, -- no birth, no pregnancy, no conception!

¹² For even should they bring up their children, yet will I bereave them, [that] not a man [remain]: for woe also to them when I shall have departed from them!

¹³ Ephraim, as I saw [him], was a Tyre planted in a beautiful place; but Ephraim shall bring forth his children to the slayer.

¹⁴ Give them, Jehovah -- what wilt thou Give? -- Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.

¹⁵ All their wickedness is in Gilgal; for there I hated them: because of the wickedness of their doings, I will drive them out of my house, I will love them no more: all their princes are rebellious.

¹⁶ Ephraim is smitten: their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit; yea, though they should bring forth, yet will I slay the beloved [fruit] of their womb.

¹⁷ My God hath rejected them, because they hearkened not unto him; and they shall be wanderers among the nations.

¹ In the eighteenth year of king Jeroboam began Abijah to reign over Judah.

² He reigned three years in Jerusalem; and his mother's name was Michaiah, the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah. And there was war between Abijah and Jeroboam.

³ And Abijah began the war with an army of men of war, four hundred thousand chosen men; and Jeroboam set the battle in array against him with eight hundred thousand chosen men, mighty men of valour.

⁴ And Abijah stood up on the top of mount Zemaraim, which is in mount Ephraim, and said, Hear me, Jeroboam, and all Israel!

⁵ Ought ye not to know that Jehovah the God of Israel gave the kingdom over Israel to David for ever, to him and to his sons [by] a covenant of salt?

⁶ But Jeroboam the son of Nebat, the servant of Solomon the son of David, rose up and rebelled against his lord.

⁷ And vain men, sons of Belial, gathered to him and strengthened themselves against Rehoboam the son of Solomon, and Rehoboam was young and faint-hearted, and did not shew himself strong against them.

⁸ And now ye think to shew yourselves strong against the kingdom of Jehovah in the hand of the sons of David; and ye are a great multitude, and ye have with you the golden calves that Jeroboam made you for gods.

⁹ Have ye not cast out the priests of Jehovah, the sons of Aaron, and the Levites, and made you priests as the peoples of the lands? whoever comes to consecrate himself with a young bullock and seven rams, he becomes a priest of what is not God.

¹⁰ But as for us, Jehovah is our God, and we have not forsaken him; and the priests that serve Jehovah are the sons of Aaron, and the Levites are at their work:

¹¹ and they burn to Jehovah every morning and every evening burnt-offerings and sweet incense; the loaves also are set in order upon the pure table; and the candlestick of gold with its lamps to burn every evening: for *we* keep the charge of Jehovah our God; but *ye* have forsaken him.

¹² And behold, we have God with us at our head, and his priests, and the loud-sounding trumpets to sound an alarm against you. Children of Israel, do not fight with Jehovah the God of your fathers; for ye shall not prosper.

¹³ But Jeroboam caused an ambush to come about behind them; and they were before Judah, and the ambush behind them.

¹⁴ And Judah looked back, and behold, they had the battle in front and behind; and they cried to Jehovah, and the priests sounded with the trumpets.

¹⁵ And the men of Judah gave a shout; and as the men of Judah shouted, it came to pass that God smote Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and Judah.

¹⁶ And the children of Israel fled before Judah; and God delivered them into their hand.

¹⁷ And Abijah and his people slew them with a great slaughter; and there fell down slain of Israel five hundred thousand chosen men.

¹⁸ And the children of Israel were humbled at that time, and the children of Judah were strengthened, because they relied upon Jehovah the God of their fathers.

¹⁹ And Abijah pursued after Jeroboam, and took cities from him: Bethel with its dependent villages, and Jeshanah with its dependent villages, and Ephron with its dependent villages.

²⁰ And Jeroboam did not recover strength again in the days of Abijah; and Jehovah smote him, and he died.

²¹ But Abijah strengthened himself, and took fourteen wives, and begot twenty-two sons and sixteen daughters.

²² And the rest of the acts of Abijah, and his ways and his sayings, are written in the treatise of the prophet Iddo.