7
1 When I would have healed Israel,
Then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria:
For they commit falsehood; and the thief cometh in,
And the troop of robbers spoileth without.
2 And they consider not in their hearts
That I remember all their wickedness:
Now their own doings have beset them about;
They are before my face.
3 They make the king glad with their wickedness,
And the princes with their lies.
4 They are all adulterers, as an oven heated by the baker,
Who ceaseth from raising after he hath kneaded the dough, until it be leavened.
5 In the day of our king the princes have made him sick with bottles of wine;
He stretched out his hand with scorners.
6 For they have made ready their heart like an oven, whiles they lie in wait:
Their baker sleepeth all the night;
In the morning it burneth as a flaming fire.
7 They are all hot as an oven,
And have devoured their judges;
All their kings are fallen:
There is none among them that calleth unto me.
8 Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people;
Ephraim is a cake not turned.
9 Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not:
Yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not.
10 And the pride of Israel testifieth to his face:
And they do not return to the Lord their God, nor seek him for all this.
11 Ephraim also is like a silly dove, without heart:
They call to Egypt, they go to Assyria.
12 When they shall go, I will spread my net upon them;
I will bring them down as the fowls of the heaven;
I will chastise them, as their congregation hath heard.
13 Woe unto them! for they have fled from me:
Destruction unto them! because they have transgressed against me:
Though I have redeemed them, yet they have spoken lies against me.
14 And they have not cried unto me with their heart,
When they howled upon their beds:
They assemble themselves for corn and wine,
And they rebel against me.
15 Though I have bound and strengthened their arms,
Yet do they imagine mischief against me.
16 They return, but not to the most High:
They are like a deceitful bow:
Their princes shall fall by the sword for the rage of their tongue:
This shall be their derision in the land of Egypt.