¹ When Ephraim spoke, a horror seized Israel: and he sinned in Baal and died.

² And now they have sinned more and more : and they have made to themselves a molten thing of their silver as the likeness of idols: the whole is the work of craftsmen: to these that say: Sacrifice men, ye that adore calves.

³ Therefore they shall be as a morning aloud, and as the early dew that passeth away, as the dust that is driven with a whirlwind out of the floor, and as the smoke out of the chimney.

⁴ But I am the Lord thy God from the land of Egypt: and thou shalt know no God but me, and there is no saviour beside me.

⁵ I knew thee in the desert, in the land of the wilderness.

⁶ According to their pastures they were filled, and were made full: and they lifted up their heart, and have forgotten me.

⁷ And I will be to them as a lioness, as a leopard in the way of the Assyrians.

⁸ I will meet them as a bear that is robbed of her whelps, and I will rend the inner parts of their liver: and I will devour them there as a lion, the beast of the field shall tear them.

⁹ Destruction is thy own, 0 Israel: thy help is only in me.

¹⁰ Where is thy king? now especially let him save thee in all thy cities: and thy judges, of whom thou saidst: Q Give me kings and princes.

¹¹ I will give thee a king in my wrath, and will take him away in my indignation.

¹² The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up, his sin is hidden.

¹³ The sorrows of a woman in labour snail come upon him, he is an unwise son: for now he shall not stand in the breach of the children.

¹⁴ I will deliver them out of the hand of death. I will redeem them from death : O death, I will be thy death; O hell, I will be thy bite: comfort is hidden from my eyes.

¹⁵ Because he shall make a separation between brothers: s the Lord will bring a burning wind that shall rise from the desert, and it shall dry up his springs, and shall make his fountain desolate, and he shall carry off the treasure of every desirable vessel.

⁶ Wherefore a lion out of the wood hath slain them, a wolf in the evening, hath spoiled them, a leopard watcheth for their cities: every one that shall go out thence shall be taken, because their transgressions are multiplied, their rebellions are strengthened.

¹ Moreover take thou up a lamentation for the princes of Israel,

² And say: Why did thy mother the lioness lie down among the lions, and bring up her whelps in the midst of young lions?

³ And she brought out one of her whelps, and he became a lion: and he learned to catch the prey, and to devour men.

⁴ And the nations heard of him, and took him, but not without receiving wounds: and they brought him in chains into the land of Egypt.

⁵ But she seeing herself weakened, and that her hope was lost, took one of her young lions, and set him up for a lion.

⁶ And he went up and down among the lions, and became a lion: and he learned to catch the prey, and to devour men.

⁷ He learned to make widows, and to lay waste their cities: and the land became desolate, and the fulness thereof by the noise of his roaring.

⁸ And the nations Game together against him on every side out of the provinces, and they spread their net over him, in their wounds he was taken.

⁹ And they put him into a cage, they brought him in chains to the king of Babylon: and they cast him into prison, that his voice should no more be heard upon the mountains of Israel.

¹⁰ Thy mother is like a vine in thy blood planted by the water: her fruit and her branches have grown out of many waters.

¹¹ And she hath strong rods to make sceptres for them that bear rule, and her stature was exalted among the branches: and she saw her height in the multitude of her branches.

¹² But she was plucked up in wrath, and cast on the ground, and the burning wind dried up her fruit: her strong rods are withered, and dried up: the fire hath devoured her.

¹³ And now she is transplanted into the desert, in a land not passable, and dry.

¹⁴ And a fire is gone out from a rod of her branches, which hath devoured her fruit: so that she now hath no strong rod, to be a sceptre of rulers. This is a lamentation, and it shall be for a lamentation.