Punishment for Israel

1Do not rejoice, Israel;

do not be jubilant like the other nations.

For you have been unfaithful to your God;

you love the wages of a prostitute

at every threshing-floor.

2Threshing-floors and winepresses will not feed the people;

the new wine will fail them.

3They will not remain in the Lord’s land;

Ephraim will return to Egypt

and eat unclean food in Assyria.

4They will not pour out wine offerings to the Lord,

nor will their sacrifices please him.

Such sacrifices will be to them like the bread of mourners;

all who eat them will be unclean.

This food will be for themselves;

it will not come into the temple of the Lord.

5What will you do on the day of your appointed festivals,

on the feast days of the Lord?

6Even if they escape from destruction,

Egypt will gather them,

and Memphis will bury them.

Their treasures of silver will be taken over by briers,

and thorns will overrun their tents.

7The days of punishment are coming,

the days of reckoning are at hand.

Let Israel know this.

Because your sins are so many

and your hostility so great,

the prophet is considered a fool,

the inspired person a maniac.

8The prophet, along with my God,

is the watchman over Ephraim,9:8 Or The prophet is the watchman over Ephraim, / the people of my God

yet snares await him on all his paths,

and hostility in the house of his God.

9They have sunk deep into corruption,

as in the days of Gibeah.

God will remember their wickedness

and punish them for their sins.

10‘When I found Israel,

it was like finding grapes in the desert;

when I saw your ancestors,

it was like seeing the early fruit on the fig-tree.

But when they came to Baal Peor,

they consecrated themselves to that shameful idol

and became as vile as the thing they loved.

11Ephraim’s glory will fly away like a bird –

no birth, no pregnancy, no conception.

12Even if they bring up children,

I will bereave them of every one.

Woe to them

when I turn away from them!

13I have seen Ephraim, like Tyre,

planted in a pleasant place.

But Ephraim will bring out

their children to the slayer.’

14Give them, Lord –

what will you give them?

Give them wombs that miscarry

and breasts that are dry.

15‘Because of all their wickedness in Gilgal,

I hated them there.

Because of their sinful deeds,

I will drive them out of my house.

I will no longer love them;

all their leaders are rebellious.

16Ephraim is blighted,

their root is withered,

they yield no fruit.

Even if they bear children,

I will slay their cherished offspring.’

17My God will reject them

because they have not obeyed him;

they will be wanderers among the nations.