Ephraim Faces Punishment

• do not exult like the nations!
• For you played the whore, departing from your God;
  • you loved a harlot’s wage
• on all the threshing floors of grain.
• 2 Threshing floor and wine vat will not feed them, and new wine will fail her.[fn]
  • 3 They will not remain in the land of Yahweh.
• But Ephraim will return to Egypt,
  • and in Assyria they will eat unclean food.
  • 4 They will not pour drink offerings of wine to Yahweh, and their sacrifices will not please him.
• They are like mourners’ bread for them;
  • all those who eat it will be defiled.
• For their bread will be for their hunger ;[fn]
  • it will not come to the house of Yahweh.
  • 5 What will you do on the day of the appointed time, and on the day of the festival of Yahweh?
  • 6 For look! If they flee from the destruction, Egypt will gather them;
  • Memphis[fn] will bury them.
• Nettles will possess
  • their precious things of silver;
    • thorns will be in their tents.
• 7 The days of punishment have come; the days of retribution have come;
  • Israel knows!
• The prophet is a fool,
  • the man of the spirit is acting like a madman.
• Because of the greatness of your sin,
  • your hostility is great.
  • 8 The prophet keeps watch over Ephraim for my God; the snare of a fowler is on all his ways,
  • and hostility in the house of his God.
  • 9 They deeply corrupted themselves[fn] as in the days of Gibeah;
• he will remember their sin,
  • he will punish their sins.
  • 10 Like the grapes in the wilderness, I found Israel.
• Like early ripened fruit on the fig tree in the first season,[fn]
  • I saw your ancestors.[fn]
• They themselves came to Baal Peor,
  • and they consecrated themselves to shame.
• And they became detestable things,
  • like the thing they love .[fn]
  • 11 Ephraim’s glory is like a bird; it will fly away—
    • no birth, no pregnancy, and no conception.
  • 12 Even though they bring up their children, I will bereave them before maturity.[fn]
• Woe to them indeed,
  • when I depart from them!
  • 13 Ephraim, as I see it, is like a palm in a meadow;
• but Ephraim must bring out
  • his children to the slayer.
  • 14 Give them, O Yahweh— what will you give them?
• Give them a miscarrying womb
  • and dry breasts.
  • 15 Every evil of theirs began at Gilgal, so I began to hate them there;
• because of the evil of their deeds
  • I will drive them out from my house.
• I will love them no more;
  • all their officials are rebels.
  • 16 Ephraim is stricken, their root is dried up,
    • they shall not bear fruit.
• Even if they give birth,
  • I will kill the cherished offspring of their womb.
  • 17 My God will reject them because they did not listen to him,
    • and they will be wanderers among the nations.