⁴ Yet let no one contend,
    and let none accuse,
    for with you is my contention, O priest.
⁵ You shall stumble by day;
    the prophet also shall stumble with you by night;
    and I will destroy your mother.
⁶ My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge;
    because you have rejected knowledge,
    I reject you from being a priest to me.
And since you have forgotten the law of your God,
    I also will forget your children.

⁷ The more they increased,
    the more they sinned against me;
    I will change their glory into shame.
⁸ They feed on the sin of my people;
    they are greedy for their iniquity.
⁹ And it shall be like people, like priest;
    I will punish them for their ways
    and repay them for their deeds.
¹⁰ They shall eat, but not be satisfied;
    they shall play the whore, but not multiply,
because they have forsaken the Lord
    to cherish ¹¹ whoredom, wine, and new wine,
    which take away the understanding.
¹² My people inquire of a piece of wood,
    and their walking staff gives them oracles.
For a spirit of whoredom has led them astray,
    and they have left their God to play the whore.
¹³ They sacrifice on the tops of the mountains
    and burn offerings on the hills,
under oak, poplar, and terebinth,
    because their shade is good.
Therefore your daughters play the whore,
    and your brides commit adultery.
¹⁴ I will not punish your daughters when they play the whore,
    nor your brides when they commit adultery;
for the men themselves go aside with prostitutes
    and sacrifice with cult prostitutes,
and a people without understanding shall come to ruin.

¹⁵ Though you play the whore, O Israel,
    let not Judah become guilty.
Enter not into Gilgal,
    nor go up to Beth-aven,
    and swear not, “As the Lord lives.”
¹⁶ Like a stubborn heifer,
    Israel is stubborn;
can the Lord now feed them
    like a lamb in a broad pasture?

¹⁷ Ephraim is joined to idols;
    leave him alone.
¹⁸ When their drink is gone, they give themselves to whoring;
    their rulers dearly love shame.
¹⁹ A wind has wrapped them in its wings,
    and they shall be ashamed because of their sacrifices.

³ I know Ephraim,
    and Israel is not hidden from me;
for now, O Ephraim, you have played the whore;
    Israel is defiled.
⁴ Their deeds do not permit them
    to return to their God.
For the spirit of whoredom is within them,
    and they know not the Lord.

⁵ The pride of Israel testifies to his face;
    Israel and Ephraim shall stumble in his guilt;
    Judah also shall stumble with them.
⁶ With their flocks and herds they shall go
    to seek the Lord,
but they will not find him;
    he has withdrawn from them.
⁷ They have dealt faithlessly with the Lord;
    for they have borne alien children.
    Now the new moon shall devour them with their fields.

⁸ Blow the horn in Gibeah,
    the trumpet in Ramah.
Sound the alarm at Beth-aven;
    we follow you, O Benjamin!
⁹ Ephraim shall become a desolation
    in the day of punishment;
among the tribes of Israel
    I make known what is sure.
¹⁰ The princes of Judah have become
    like those who move the landmark;
upon them I will pour out
    my wrath like water.
¹¹ Ephraim is oppressed, crushed in judgment,
    because he was determined to go after filth.
¹² But I am like a moth to Ephraim,
    and like dry rot to the house of Judah.

¹³ When Ephraim saw his sickness,
    and Judah his wound,
then Ephraim went to Assyria,
    and sent to the great king.
But he is not able to cure you
    or heal your wound.
¹⁴ For I will be like a lion to Ephraim,
    and like a young lion to the house of Judah.
I, even I, will tear and go away;
    I will carry off, and no one shall rescue.

¹⁵ I will return again to my place,
    until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face,
    and in their distress earnestly seek me.

⁴ What shall I do with you, O Ephraim?
    What shall I do with you, O Judah?
Your love is like a morning cloud,
    like the dew that goes early away.
⁵ Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets;
    I have slain them by the words of my mouth,
    and my judgment goes forth as the light.
⁶ For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
    the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

⁷ But like Adam they transgressed the covenant;
    there they dealt faithlessly with me.
⁸ Gilead is a city of evildoers,
    tracked with blood.
⁹ As robbers lie in wait for a man,
    so the priests band together;
they murder on the way to Shechem;
    they commit villainy.
¹⁰ In the house of Israel I have seen a horrible thing;
    Ephraim’s whoredom is there; Israel is defiled.

¹¹ For you also, O Judah, a harvest is appointed.

When I restore the fortunes of my people,

³ The wicked are estranged from the womb;
    they go astray from birth, speaking lies.
⁴ They have venom like the venom of a serpent,
    like the deaf adder that stops its ear,
⁵ so that it does not hear the voice of charmers
    or of the cunning enchanter.

⁶ O God, break the teeth in their mouths;
    tear out the fangs of the young lions, O Lord!
⁷ Let them vanish like water that runs away;
    when he aims his arrows, let them be blunted.
⁸ Let them be like the snail that dissolves into slime,
    like the stillborn child who never sees the sun.
⁹ Sooner than your pots can feel the heat of thorns,
    whether green or ablaze, may he sweep them away!

¹⁰ The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance;
    he will bathe his feet in the blood of the wicked.
¹¹ Mankind will say, “Surely there is a reward for the righteous;
    surely there is a God who judges on earth.”