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.

¹ The burden of Damascus: "Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it will be a ruinous heap.

² The cities of Aroer are forsaken. They will be for flocks, which shall lie down, and none shall make them afraid.

³ The fortress shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria. They will be as the glory of the children of Israel," says Yahweh of Armies.

⁴ "It will happen in that day that the glory of Jacob will be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh will become lean.

⁵ It will be like when the harvester gathers the wheat, and his arm reaps the grain. Yes, it will be like when one gleans grain in the valley of Rephaim.

⁶ Yet gleanings will be left there, like the shaking of an olive tree, two or three olives in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outermost branches of a fruitful tree," says Yahweh, the God of Israel.

⁷ In that day, people will look to their Maker, and their eyes will have respect for the Holy One of Israel.

⁸ They will not look to the altars, the work of their hands; neither shall they respect that which their fingers have made, either the Asherim, or the incense altars.

⁹ In that day, their strong cities will be like the forsaken places in the woods and on the mountain top, which were forsaken from before the children of Israel; and it will be a desolation.

¹⁰ For you have forgotten the God of your salvation, and have not remembered the rock of your strength. Therefore you plant pleasant plants, and set out foreign seedlings.

¹¹ In the day of your planting, you hedge it in. In the morning, you make your seed blossom, but the harvest flees away in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.

¹² Ah, the uproar of many peoples, who roar like the roaring of the seas; and the rushing of nations, that rush like the rushing of mighty waters!

¹³ The nations will rush like the rushing of many waters: but he will rebuke them, and they will flee far off, and will be chased like the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like the whirling dust before the storm.

¹⁴ At evening, behold, terror! Before the morning, they are no more. This is the portion of those who plunder us, and the lot of those who rob us.