¹“When I would have healed Israel,

Then the iniquity of Ephraim was uncovered,

And the wickedness of Samaria.

For they have committed fraud;

A thief comes in;

A band of robbers takes spoil outside.

²They do not consider in their hearts

That I remember all their wickedness;

Now their own deeds have surrounded them;

They are before My face.

³They make a king glad with their wickedness,[#Hos. 1:1]

And princes with their lies.

⁴“They are all adulterers.[#Jer. 9:2; 23:10]

Like an oven heated by a baker—

He ceases stirring the fire after kneading the dough,

Until it is leavened.

⁵In the day of our king

Princes have made him sick, inflamed with wine;

He stretched out his hand with scoffers.

⁶They prepare their heart like an oven,

While they lie in wait;

Their baker sleeps all night;

In the morning it burns like a flaming fire.

⁷They are all hot, like an oven,

And have devoured their judges;

All their kings have fallen.

None among them calls upon Me.

⁸“Ephraim has mixed himself among the peoples;[#Ps. 106:35]

Ephraim is a cake unturned.

⁹Aliens have devoured his strength,[#Is. 1:7; 42:25; Hos. 8:7]

But he does not know it;

Yes, gray hairs are here and there on him,

Yet he does not know it.

¹⁰And the pride of Israel testifies to his face,[#Hos. 5:5]

But they do not return to the Lord their God,

Nor seek Him for all this.

Futile Reliance on the Nations

¹¹“Ephraim also is like a silly dove, without sense—[#Hos. 11:11]

They call to Egypt,

They go to Assyria.

¹²Wherever they go, I will spread My net on them;[#Ezek. 12:13]

I will bring them down like birds of the air;

I will chastise them

According to what their congregation has heard.

¹³“Woe to them, for they have fled from Me!

Destruction to them,

Because they have transgressed against Me!

Though I redeemed them,

Yet they have spoken lies against Me.

¹⁴They did not cry out to Me with their heart[#Job 35:9, 10; Ps. 78:36; Jer. 3:10; Zech. 7:5]

When they wailed upon their beds.

“They assemble together for grain and new wine,

They rebel against Me;

¹⁵Though I disciplined and strengthened their arms,

Yet they devise evil against Me;

¹⁶They return, but not to the Most High;

They are like a treacherous bow.

Their princes shall fall by the sword

For the cursings of their tongue.

This shall be their derision in the land of Egypt.