CHAPTER 9
1 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.
2 The cornfloor and presser shall not feed them, and wine shall lie to them.
3 They shall not dwell in the land of the Lord. Ephraim turned again in to Egypt, and ate defouled thing among Assyrians.
4 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.
5 What shall ye do in the solemn day, in the day of the feast of the Lord?
6 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.
7 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.
8 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.
9 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.