1   Do not rejoice, O Israel,

  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.

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;

    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 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

    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,

    I saw your ancestors.

  They themselves came to Baal Peor,

    and they consecrated themselves to shame.

  And they became detestable things,

    like the thing they love.

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.

  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.