1For Ephraim spake, hideousness assailed Israel; and he trespassed in Baal, and was dead.

2And now they added to do sin, and made to them a molten image of their silver, as the likeness of idols; all is the making of craftsmen. To these they say, A! ye men, offer, and worship calves.

3Therefore they shall be as a morrowtide cloud, and as the dew of morrowtide, that passeth forth, as dust ravished by whirlwind from the cornfloor, and as smoke of a chimney.

4Forsooth I am thy Lord God from the land of Egypt; and thou shalt not know God, except me, and no saviour is, except me.

5I knew thee in the desert, in the land of wilderness.

6By their pastures they were [ful] filled, and had abundance; they raised [up] their heart, and forgat me.

7And I shall be as a lioness to them, as a leopard in the way of Assyrians.

8I as a female bear, when the whelps be ravished, shall meet them; and shall all-break the inner things of the maw of them. And I as a lion shall waste them there; a beast of the field shall rend them.

9Israel, thy perdition is of thee; thine help is only of me.

10Where is thy king? mostly save he thee now in all thy cities; and where be thy judges, of which thou saidest, Give thou to me a king and princes?

11I shall give to thee a king in my strong vengeance, and I shall take away in mine indignation.

12The wickedness of Ephraim is bound together; his sin is hid.

13The sorrows of a woman travailing of child shall come to him; he is a son not wise. For now he shall not stand in the defouling of sons.

14I shall deliver them from the hand of death, and I shall again-buy them from death. Thou death, I shall be thy death; thou hell, I shall be thy morsel. Comfort is hid from mine eyes,

15for he shall part betwixt brethren. The Lord shall bring a burning wind, going up from desert; and it shall make dry the veins thereof, and it shall make desolate the wells thereof; and he shall ravish the treasure of each desirable vessel.

16Samaria perish, for it stirred his God to bitterness; perish it by sword. The little children of them be hurtled down, and the women with child thereof be carved.