¹ Når Efra'im talte, blev alle redde; han raget høit op i Israel; da førte han skyld over sig ved å dyrke Ba'al og døde.

² Og nu blir de ved å synde og gjøre sig støpte billeder av sitt sølv, avguder efter sin egen forstand, alle sammen håndverkeres arbeid; sådanne er det de taler til - mennesker som ofrer, kysser kalver!

³ Derfor skal de bli som en morgensky, lik duggen som tidlig svinner bort, lik agner som vinden fører bort fra treskeplassen, og som røk fra et røkfang.

⁴ Men jeg er Herren din Gud fra Egyptens land, og nogen annen Gud enn mig kjenner du ikke, og nogen annen frelser finnes det ikke.

⁵ Det var jeg som sørget for dig i ørkenen, i det brennhete land.

⁶ Fordi deres beite var godt, blev de mette; og da de blev mette, ophøiet de sig i sitt hjerte, og så glemte de mig.

⁷ Da blev jeg mot dem som en løve; som en leopard lurer jeg ved veien;

⁸ jeg vil møte dem som en bjørn som ungene er tatt fra, og sønderrive deres hjertes dekke*; jeg vil fortære dem som en løvinne; markens ville dyr skal sønderslite dem. / {* d.e. deres bryst.}

⁹ Det er blitt til din ødeleggelse, Israel, at du har satt dig op imot mig, jeg som er din hjelp.

¹⁰ Hvor er da din konge, at han skulde kunne frelse dig i alle dine byer, og dine dommere, om hvem du sa: Gi mig en konge og fyrster?

¹¹ Jeg gir dig en konge i min vrede, og jeg tar ham bort igjen i min harme.

¹² Efra'ims misgjerning er samlet i en pung, hans synd er gjemt.

¹³ Veer som hos en fødende kvinne skal komme over ham. Han er en uforstandig sønn; når tiden er der, kommer han ikke frem i modermunnen.

¹⁴ Av dødsrikets vold vil jeg fri dem ut, fra døden vil jeg forløse dem. Død! Hvor er din pest? Dødsrike! Hvor er din sott? Anger er skjult for mine øine*. / {* jeg angrer ikke hvad jeg har lovt; 4MO 23, 19.}

¹⁵ For han brer frukt*, der han står blandt sine brødre; men det kommer en østenvind, et Herrens vær, som drar op fra ørkenen, og hans brønn blir tom, og hans kilde tørkes ut; den** røver den hele skatt av kostelige ting. / {* 1MO 48, 19; 49, 22.} {** østenvinden, d.e. assyrerne; HSE 4, 19.}

¹ These are the words of the covenant which Yahweh commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the covenant which he made with them in Horeb.

² Moses called to all Israel, and said to them, You have seen all that Yahweh did before your eyes in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh, and to all his servants, and to all his land;

³ the great trials which your eyes saw, the signs, and those great wonders:

⁴ but Yahweh has not given you a heart to know, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, to this day.

⁵ I have led you forty years in the wilderness: your clothes have not grown old on you, and your shoes have not grown old on your feet.

⁶ You have not eaten bread, neither have you drunk wine or strong drink; that you may know that I am Yahweh your God.

⁷ When you came to this place, Sihon the king of Heshbon, and Og the king of Bashan, came out against us to battle, and we struck them:

⁸ and we took their land, and gave it for an inheritance to the Reubenites, and to the Gadites, and to the half-tribe of the Manassites.

⁹ Keep therefore the words of this covenant, and do them, that you may prosper in all that you do.

¹⁰ You stand this day all of you before Yahweh your God; your heads, your tribes, your elders, and your officers, even all the men of Israel,

¹¹ your little ones, your wives, and your foreigner who is in the midst of your camps, from the one who cuts your wood to the one who draws your water;

¹² that you may enter into the covenant of Yahweh your God, and into his oath, which Yahweh your God makes with you this day;

¹³ that he may establish you this day to himself for a people, and that he may be to you a God, as he spoke to you, and as he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

¹⁴ Neither with you only do I make this covenant and this oath,

¹⁵ but with him who stands here with us this day before Yahweh our God, and also with him who is not here with us this day

¹⁶ (for you know how we lived in the land of Egypt, and how we came through the midst of the nations through which you passed;

¹⁷ and you have seen their abominations, and their idols, wood and stone, silver and gold, which were among them);

¹⁸ lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turns away this day from Yahweh our God, to go to serve the gods of those nations; lest there should be among you a root that bears gall and wormwood;

¹⁹ and it happen, when he hears the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, "I shall have peace, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart, to destroy the moist with the dry."

²⁰ Yahweh will not pardon him, but then the anger of Yahweh and his jealousy will smoke against that man, and all the curse that is written in this book shall lie on him, and Yahweh will blot out his name from under the sky.

²¹ Yahweh will set him apart to evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant that is written in this book of the law.

²² The generation to come, your children who shall rise up after you, and the foreigner who shall come from a far land, shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses with which Yahweh has made it sick;

²³ [and that] the whole land of it is sulfur, and salt, [and] a burning, [that] it is not sown, nor bears, nor any grass grows therein, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which Yahweh overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath:

²⁴ even all the nations shall say, "Why has Yahweh done thus to this land? What does the heat of this great anger mean?"

²⁵ Then men shall say, "Because they forsook the covenant of Yahweh, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them forth out of the land of Egypt,

²⁶ and went and served other gods, and worshiped them, gods that they didn't know, and that he had not given to them:

²⁷ therefore the anger of Yahweh was kindled against this land, to bring on it all the curse that is written in this book;

²⁸ and Yahweh rooted them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as at this day."

²⁹ The secret things belong to Yahweh our God; but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.