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Do not be jubilant like the other nations;
for you have acted like a prostitute,
departing from your God.
You have loved the wages of a prostitute
on every threshing floor.
2 Threshing floor and wine vat will not feed the people,
and the new wine will fail them.
3 Ephraim will not remain in the land of the Lord;
Ephraim will return to Egypt,
and they will eat unclean food in Assyria.
4 They will not pour out wine offerings to the Lord,
and their sacrifices will not please Him.
Such sacrifices will be to them like the bread of mourners;
all who eat of it become defiled.
For their bread will be for their own appetites only;
it will not come into the House of the Lord.
5 What will you do on the day of your appointed festival,
on the day of the Lord’s feast?
6 For even if they escape destruction,
Egypt will gather them,
and Memphis will bury them.
Briers will take possession over their precious silver,
and thorns will invade their tents.
7 The days of punishment have come;
the days of retribution have arrived;
let Israel know it.
The prophet is considered a fool,
and the inspired man insane,
because of the abundance of your sins
and the greatness of your hostility.
8 The prophet is a watchman over Ephraim
for my God,
yet a fowler’s snare awaits him wherever he turns,
and hostility is in the house of his God.
9 They have sunk deep into corruption,
as in the days of Gibeah.
God will remember their guilt;
He will punish their sins.
10 “When I found Israel,
it was like grapes in the wilderness;
when I saw your fathers,
it was like seeing the first fruit
on a fig tree in its first season.
But when they came to Baal-peor,
they consecrated themselves to a shameful idol,
and became detestable, like the thing they loved.
11 Ephraim’s glory will fly away like a bird—
no birth, no pregnancy, no conception.
12 Even if they raise children,
I will bereave them of each one.
Woe to them
when I depart from them!
13 I have seen Ephraim, like Tyre,
planted in a delightful meadow,
but now Ephraim will bring out his children
to the executioner.”
14 Give them, O Lord—
what will you give?
Give them wombs that miscarry
and breasts that are dry.
15 “Their outpouring of wickedness erupted from Gilgal,
for there I came to hate them.
Because of their sinful deeds,
I will drive them from My house.
I will love them no more;
all their leaders are rebellious.
16 Ephraim is blighted,
their roots are withered;
they cannot bear fruit.
Even if they bear children,
I will kill the cherished offspring of their wombs.”
17 My God will cast them away
because they have not obeyed Him;
they will become wanderers among the nations.