¹ Israel, return to Yahweh your God; for you have fallen because of your sin.

² Take words with you, and return to Yahweh. Tell him, "Forgive all our sins, and accept that which is good: so we offer our lips like bulls.

³ Assyria can't save us. We won't ride on horses; neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, 'Our gods!' for in you the fatherless finds mercy."

⁴ "I will heal their waywardness. I will love them freely; for my anger is turned away from him.

⁵ I will be like the dew to Israel. He will blossom like the lily, and send down his roots like Lebanon.

⁶ His branches will spread, and his beauty will be like the olive tree, and his fragrance like Lebanon.

⁷ Men will dwell in his shade. They will revive like the grain, and blossom like the vine. Their fragrance will be like the wine of Lebanon.

⁸ Ephraim, what have I to do any more with idols? I answer, and will take care of him. I am like a green fir tree; from me your fruit is found."

⁹ Who is wise, that he may understand these things? Who is prudent, that he may know them? For the ways of Yahweh are right, and the righteous walk in them; But the rebellious stumble in them.

¹⁴ When you are come to the land which Yahweh your God gives you, and shall possess it, and shall dwell therein, and shall say, "I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me;"

¹⁵ you shall surely set him king over yourselves, whom Yahweh your God shall choose: one from among your brothers you shall set king over you; you may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother.

¹⁶ Only he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he may multiply horses; because Yahweh has said to you, "You shall not go back that way again."

¹⁷ Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart not turn away: neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold.

¹⁸ It shall be, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book, out of [that which is] before the priests the Levites: