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Punishment for Israel’s Sin

9Do not rejoice, O Israel!
   Do not exult^* as other nations do;
for you have played the whore, departing from your God.
   You have loved a prostitute’s pay
   on all threshing-floors.
² Threshing-floor and wine vat shall not feed them,
   and the new wine shall fail them.
³ They shall not remain in the land of the Lord;
   but Ephraim shall return to Egypt,
   and in Assyria they shall eat unclean food.

⁴ They shall not pour drink-offerings of wine to the Lord,
   and their sacrifices shall not please him.
Such sacrifices shall be like mourners’ bread;
   all who eat of it shall be defiled;
for their bread shall be for their hunger only;
   it shall not come to the house of the Lord.

⁵ What will you do on the day of appointed festival,
   and on the day of the festival of the Lord?
⁶ For even if they escape destruction,
   Egypt shall gather them,
   Memphis shall bury them.
Nettles shall possess their precious things of silver;^*
   thorns shall be in their tents.

⁷ The days of punishment have come,
   the days of recompense have come;
   Israel cries,^*
‘The prophet is a fool,
   the man of the spirit is mad!’
Because of your great iniquity,
   your hostility is great.
⁸ The prophet is a sentinel for my God over Ephraim,
yet a fowler’s snare is on all his ways,
   and hostility in the house of his God.
⁹ They have deeply corrupted themselves
   as in the days of Gibeah;
he will remember their iniquity,
   he will punish their sins.

¹⁰ Like grapes in the wilderness,
   I found Israel.
Like the first fruit on the fig tree,
   in its first season,
   I saw your ancestors.
But they came to Baal-peor,
   and consecrated themselves to a thing of shame,
   and became detestable like the thing they loved.
¹¹ Ephraim’s glory shall fly away like a bird—
   no birth, no pregnancy, no conception!
¹² Even if they bring up children,
   I will bereave them until no one is left.
Woe to them indeed
   when I depart from them!
¹³ Once I saw Ephraim as a young palm planted in a lovely meadow,^*
   but now Ephraim must lead out his children for slaughter.
¹⁴ Give them, O Lord—
   what will you give?
Give them a miscarrying womb
   and dry breasts.

¹⁵ Every evil of theirs began at Gilgal;
   there I came to hate them.
Because of the wickedness of their deeds
   I will drive them out of my house.
I will love them no more;
   all their officials are rebels.

¹⁶ Ephraim is stricken,
   their root is dried up,
   they shall bear no fruit.
Even though they give birth,
   I will kill the cherished offspring of their womb.
¹⁷ Because they have not listened to him,
   my God will reject them;
   they shall become wanderers among the nations.