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for joy, as other people:
for thou hast gone a whoring
from thy God,
thou hast loved a reward
upon every cornfloor.
2 The floor and the winepress shall not feed them,
and the new wine shall fail in her.
3 They shall not dwell in the Lord’s land;
but Ephraim shall return to Egypt,
and they shall eat unclean things in Assyria.
4 They shall not offer wine offerings to the Lord,
neither shall they be pleasing unto him:
their sacrifices shall be unto them as the bread of mourners;
all that eat thereof shall be polluted:
for their bread for their soul
shall not come into the house of the Lord.
5 What will ye do in the solemn day,
and in the day of the feast of the Lord?
6 For, lo, they are gone because of destruction:
Egypt shall gather them up,
Memphis shall bury them:
the pleasant places for their silver, nettles shall possess them:
thorns shall be in their tabernacles.
7 The days of visitation are come,
the days of recompence are come;
Israel shall know it:
the prophet is a fool,
the spiritual man is mad,
for the multitude of thine iniquity,
and the great hatred.
8 The watchman of Ephraim
was with my God:
but the prophet is a snare of a fowler in all his ways,
and hatred in the house of his God.
9 They have deeply corrupted themselves,
as in the days of Gibeah:
therefore he will remember their iniquity,
he will visit their sins.
10 I found Israel
like grapes in the wilderness;
I saw your fathers
as the firstripe
in the fig tree at her first time:
but they went to Baalpeor,
and separated themselves unto that shame;
and their abominations were according as they loved.
11 As for Ephraim, their glory shall fly away like a bird,
from the birth, and from the womb, and from the conception.
12 Though they bring up their children,
yet will I bereave them,
that there shall not be a man left:
yea, woe also to them
when I depart from them!
13 Ephraim, as I saw Tyrus,
is planted in a pleasant place:
but Ephraim shall bring forth his children
to the murderer.
14 Give them, O Lord:
what wilt thou give?
give them a miscarrying womb
and dry breasts.
15 All their wickedness is in Gilgal:
for there I hated them:
for the wickedness of their doings
I will drive them out of mine house,
I will love them no more:
all their princes are revolters.
16 Ephraim is smitten,
their root is dried up,
they shall bear no fruit:
yea, though they bring forth,
yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb.
17 My God will cast them away,
because they did not hearken unto him:
and they shall be wanderers among the nations.