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¹When I would restore the fortunes of my people,

when I would heal Israel,

the corruption of E'phraim is revealed,

and the wicked deeds of Samar'ia;

for they deal falsely,

the thief breaks in,

and the bandits raid without.

²But they do not consider

that I remember all their evil works.

Now their deeds encompass them,

they are before my face.

³By their wickedness they make the king glad,

and the princes by their treachery.

⁴They are all adulterers;

they are like a heated oven,

whose baker ceases to stir the fire,

from the kneading of the dough until it is leavened.

⁵On the day of our king the princes

became sick with the heat of wine;

he stretched out his hand with mockers.

⁶For like an oven their hearts burn with intrigue;

all night their anger smolders;

in the morning it blazes like a flaming fire.

⁷All of them are hot as an oven,

and they devour their rulers.

All their kings have fallen;

and none of them calls upon me.

⁸E'phraim mixes himself with the peoples;

E'phraim is a cake not turned.

⁹Aliens devour his strength,

and he knows it not;

gray hairs are sprinkled upon him,

and he knows it not.

¹⁰The pride of Israel witnesses against him;

yet they do not return to the LORD their God,

nor seek him, for all this.

¹¹E'phraim is like a dove,

silly and without sense,

calling to Egypt, going to Assyria.

¹²As they go, I will spread over them my net;

I will bring them down like birds of the air;

I will chastise them for their wicked deeds.

¹³Woe to them, for they have strayed from me!

Destruction to them, for they have rebelled against me!

I would redeem them,

but they speak lies against me.

¹⁴They do not cry to me from the heart,

but they wail upon their beds;

for grain and wine they gash themselves,

they rebel against me.

¹⁵Although I trained and strengthened their arms,

yet they devise evil against me.

¹⁶They turn to Ba'al;

they are like a treacherous bow,

their princes shall fall by the sword

because of the insolence of their tongue.

This shall be their derision in the land of Egypt.