Rebellion, adultery, and drunkenness
7
📚✭“When I would have healed Israel,then the guilt of Ephraim was
uncovered,
and the wickedness of Samaria✭;
for they practice deceit.
The thief comes in,
and the band of robbers
plunders outside.
2 📚And they do not consider
in their hearts that I remember✭
all their wickedness.
Now their own deeds
have surrounded them;
they are before my face✭.
3 📚✭“They make the king glad
with their wickedness,
and please the princes
with their lies.
4 📚✭They are all adulterers,
like an oven heated by the baker,
who stops stirring up
the fire after kneading
the dough until it is leavened.
5 📚On the king’s special day
the princes become inflamed
with bottles of wine.
He stretches out his hand
with scoffers✭.
6 📚For they prepare their heart
like an oven,
while they lie in wait.
Their baker sleeps all night;
in the morning it burns
like a blazing fire.
7 📚They are all as hot as an oven,
and they have devoured their judges✭.
All their kings have fallen.
There is none among them
who calls out to me.
8 📚“Ephraim has mixed✭ himself
among the peoples.
Ephraim is a cake not turned✭ over.
9 📚✭Foreigners have devoured
his strength,
and he does not know it. Yes,
gray hairs are here and there on him,
but he does not know it.
10 📚And the pride✭ of Israel testifies
against him.
And they do not return
to the LORD their God,
or seek✭ him, in spite of all this.
11 📚“And Ephraim has become
like a silly✭ dove without heart.
They call out to Egypt,
they go to Assyria.
12 📚✭When they go, I will spread
my net on them.
I will bring them down like
the birds of the sky.
I will punish them,
as their congregation has heard.
13 📚Woe✭ to them! For they have
strayed from me.
Destruction to them!
Because they have transgressed
against me.
Though I redeemed them✭,
they have spoken lies against me.
14 📚And they have not cried out
to me with their heart✭,
when they wailed on their beds.
They gather together for grain and new wine,
but they rebel against me.
15 📚✭Though I trained and strengthened
their arms,
they plot evil against me.
16 📚They return, but not
to the Most High.
They are like a deceitful bow✭.
Their princes will fall by the sword
because of the insolence
of their tongue.
This is why they will be
mocked in the land of Egypt.