7 The days of punishment have come; the days of retribution have come. Let Israel know! The prophet is a fool; the man of the spirit is mad! For great is your iniquity and great the hostility.
8 Ephraim is a watchman with my God, a prophet. A bird catcher’s trap is on all his paths. Hostility is in the House of his God.
9 They have deeply corrupted themselves as in the days of Gibeah. He will remember their iniquity, He will punish their sin.
10 “Like grapes in the wilderness I found Israel. Like early fruit on a fig tree in its first season I saw your fathers. They came to Baal-peor and devoted themselves to shame. So they became as detestable as the thing they loved.
11 Ephraim’s glory flies away like a bird— no birth, no pregnancy, no conception!
12 For if they should raise their children, I would make them childless to the last man. Yes, woe to them when I depart from them!
13 Ephraim, as I have seen, is like Tyre, planted in a meadow, but Ephraim will bring his children out to the slayer.”