“When I would have healed Israel,
Then the iniquity of Ephraim was uncovered,
And the wickedness of Samaria.
For athey have committed fraud;
A thief comes in;
A band of robbers takes spoil outside.
2 They do not consider in their hearts
That aI remember all their wickedness;
Now their own deeds have surrounded them;
They are before My face.
3 They make a aking glad with their wickedness,
And princes bwith their lies.
4 “Theya are all adulterers.
Like an oven heated by a baker—
He ceases stirring the fire after kneading the dough,
Until it is leavened.
5 In the day of our king
Princes have made him sick, inflamed with awine;
He stretched out his hand with scoffers.
6 They prepare their heart like an oven,
While they lie in wait;
Their baker sleeps all night;
In the morning it burns like a flaming fire.
7 They are all hot, like an oven,
And have devoured their judges;
All their kings have fallen.
aNone among them calls upon Me.
8 “Ephraim ahas mixed himself among the peoples;
Ephraim is a cake unturned.
9 aAliens have devoured his strength,
But he does not know it;
Yes, gray hairs are here and there on him,
Yet he does not know it.
10 And the apride of Israel testifies to his face,
But bthey do not return to the Lord their God,
Nor seek Him for all this.
Futile Reliance on the Nations
11 “Ephraima also is like a silly dove, without sense—
bThey call to Egypt,
They go to cAssyria.
12 Wherever they go, I will aspread My net on them;
I will bring them down like birds of the air;
I will chastise them
bAccording to what their congregation has heard.
13 “Woe to them, for they have fled from Me!
Destruction to them,
Because they have transgressed against Me!
Though aI redeemed them,
Yet they have spoken lies against Me.
14 aThey did not cry out to Me with their heart
When they wailed upon their beds.
“They assemble together for grain and new bwine,
They rebel against Me;
15 Though I disciplined and strengthened their arms,
Yet they devise evil against Me;
16 They return, but not to the Most High;
aThey are like a treacherous bow.
Their princes shall fall by the sword
For the bcursings of their tongue.
This shall be their derision cin the land of Egypt.
The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Copyright © 1982 Thomas Nelson.
All rights reserved.