CHAPTER 9
Israel, do not thou be glad, do not thou make full out joy as other peoples; for thou hast done fornication, going away from thy God. Thou lovedest meed on all the cornfloors of wheat.
The cornfloor and presser shall not feed them, and wine shall lie to them.
They shall not dwell in the land of the Lord. Ephraim turned again in to Egypt, and ate defouled thing among Assyrians.
They shall not offer wine to the Lord, and they shall not please him. The sacrifices of them be as bread of mourners; all that shall eat it shall be defouled. For the bread of them is to the life of them; they shall not enter into the house of the Lord.
What shall ye do in the solemn day, in the day of the feast of the Lord?
For lo! they be gone out from destroying. Egypt shall gather them together, Memphis shall bury them. A nettle shall inherit the desirable silver of them, a clote shall be in the tabernacles of them.
Days of visitation be come, days of yielding be come. Know ye, that Israel is a fool, a mad prophet, a spiritual man, for the multitude of thy wickedness is also the multitude of madness.
The beholder of Ephraim with my God is a prophet; a snare of falling is made now on all the ways of him, strong vengeance is in the house of his God.
They sinned deeply, as in the days of Gibeah. The Lord shall have mind on the wickedness of them, and shall visit the sins of them.
10 I found Israel as grapes in desert, I saw the fathers of them as the first apples of a fig tree, in the top thereof; but they entered to Baalpeor, and were alienated [away] in[to] confusion, and they were made abominable as those things which they loved.
11 Ephraim as a bird flew away; the glory of them is of child-bearing, and of the womb, and of conceiving.
12 That if they nurse their sons, I shall make them without children among men. But also woe to them, when I shall go away from them.
13 I saw that Ephraim was as Tyre, founded in fairness; and Ephraim shall lead out his sons to the slayer.
14 Lord, give thou to them; what shalt thou give to them? give thou to them a womb without children, and dry teats.
15 All the wickednesses of them be in Gilgal, for there I had them hateful; for the malice of their findings. I shall cast them out of mine house; I shall not lay to, that I love them. All the princes of them go away from me.
16 Ephraim is smitten, the root of them is dried up; they shall not make fruit. That though they engender, I shall slay the most loved things of their womb.
17 My God shall cast them away, for they heard not him; and they shall be of unstable dwelling among nations.