Judgment of Israel’s Sin

9 Do not rejoice, O Israel, with joy like other peoples,For you have played the harlot against your God.You have made love for hire on every threshing floor.² The threshing floor and the winepressShall not feed them,And the new wine shall fail in her.

³ They shall not dwell in the Lord’s land,But Ephraim shall return to Egypt,And shall eat unclean things in Assyria.⁴ They shall not offer wine offerings to the Lord,Nor shall their sacrifices be pleasing to Him.It shall be like bread of mourners to them;All who eat it shall be defiled.For their bread shall be for their own life;It shall not come into the house of the Lord.

⁵ What will you do in the appointed day,And in the day of the feast of the Lord?⁶ For indeed they are gone because of destruction.Egypt shall gather them up;Memphis shall bury them.Nettles shall possess their valuables of silver;Thorns shall be in their tents.

⁷ The days of punishment have come;The days of recompense have come.Israel knows!The prophet is a fool,The spiritual man is insane,Because of the greatness of your iniquity and great enmity.⁸ The watchman of Ephraim is with my God;But the prophet is a fowler’s^[a] snare in all his ways—Enmity in the house of his God.⁹ They are deeply corrupted,As in the days of Gibeah.He will remember their iniquity;He will punish their sins.

¹⁰ “I found IsraelLike grapes in the wilderness;I saw your fathersAs the firstfruits on the fig tree in its first season.But they went to Baal Peor,And separated themselves to that shame;They became an abomination like the thing they loved.¹¹ As for Ephraim, their glory shall fly away like a bird—No birth, no pregnancy, and no conception!¹² Though they bring up their children,Yet I will bereave them to the last man.Yes, woe to them when I depart from them!¹³ Just as I saw Ephraim like Tyre, planted in a pleasant place,So Ephraim will bring out his children to the murderer.”

¹⁴ Give them, O Lord—What will You give?Give them a miscarrying wombAnd dry breasts!

¹⁵ “All their wickedness is in Gilgal,For there I hated them.Because of the evil of their deedsI will drive them from My house;I will love them no more.All their princes are rebellious.¹⁶ Ephraim is stricken,Their root is dried up;They shall bear no fruit.Yes, were they to bear children,I would kill the darlings of their womb.”

¹⁷ My God will cast them away,Because they did not obey Him;And they shall be wanderers among the nations.