1 When I would heal Israel,the iniquity of Ephraim is revealed,and the evil deeds of Samaria;for they deal falsely;the thief breaks in,and the bandits raid outside.
2 But they do not considerthat I remember all their evil.Now their deeds surround them; they are before my face.
3 By their evil they make the king glad,and the princes by their treachery.
4 They are all adulterers;they are like a heated ovenwhose baker ceases to stir the fire,from the kneading of the doughuntil it is leavened.
5 On the day of our king, the princesbecame sick with the heat of wine;he stretched out his hand with mockers.
6 For with hearts like an oven they approach their intrigue;all night their anger smolders;in the morning it blazes like a flaming fire.
7 All of them are hot as an oven,and they devour their rulers.All their kings have fallen,and none of them calls upon me.
8 Ephraim mixes himself with the peoples;Ephraim is a cake not turned.
9 Strangers devour his strength,and he knows it not;gray hairs are sprinkled upon him,and he knows it not.
10 The pride of Israel testifies to his face; yet they do not return to the Lord their God,nor seek him, for all this.
11 Ephraim is like a dove, silly and without sense,calling to Egypt, going to Assyria.
12 As they go, I will spread over them my net;I will bring them down like birds of the heavens; I will discipline them according to the report made to their congregation.
13 Woe 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.
14 They 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.
15 Although I trained and strengthened their arms,yet they devise evil against me.
16 They return, but not upward;they are like a treacherous bow;their princes shall fall by the swordbecause of the insolence of their tongue.This shall be their derision in the land of Egypt.