Read the Bible

¹When Ephraim spoke, there was trembling;

he was exalted in Israel;

but he incurred guilt through Baal and died.

²And now they keep on sinning

and make a cast image for themselves,

idols of silver made according to their understanding,

all of them the work of artisans.

‘Sacrifice to these’, they say.

People are kissing calves!

³Therefore they shall be like the morning mist

or like the dew that goes away early,

like chaff that swirls from the threshing-floor

or like smoke from a window.

⁴Yet I have been the LORD your God

ever since the land of Egypt;

you know no God but me,

and besides me there is no saviour.

⁵It was I who fed you in the wilderness,

in the land of drought.

⁶When I fed them, they were satisfied;

they were satisfied, and their heart was proud;

therefore they forgot me.

⁷So I will become like a lion to them,

like a leopard I will lurk beside the way.

⁸I will fall upon them like a bear robbed of her cubs,

and will tear open the covering of their heart;

there I will devour them like a lion,

as a wild animal would mangle them.

⁹I will destroy you, O Israel;

who can help you?

¹⁰Where now is your king, that he may save you?

Where in all your cities are your rulers,

of whom you said,

‘Give me a king and rulers’?

¹¹I gave you a king in my anger,

and I took him away in my wrath.

¹²Ephraim's iniquity is bound up;

his sin is kept in store.

¹³The pangs of childbirth come for him,

but he is an unwise son;

for at the proper time he does not present himself

at the mouth of the womb.

¹⁴Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol?

Shall I redeem them from Death?

O Death, where are your plagues?

O Sheol, where is your destruction?

Compassion is hidden from my eyes.

¹⁵Although he may flourish among rushes,

the east wind shall come, a blast from the LORD,

rising from the wilderness;

and his fountain shall dry up,

his spring shall be parched.

It shall strip his treasury

of every precious thing.

¹⁶Samaria shall bear her guilt,

because she has rebelled against her God;

they shall fall by the sword,

their little ones shall be dashed in pieces,

and their pregnant women ripped open.