1 »Hear this, O you priests and pay attention, O house of Israel. Give ear listen! O house of the king the judgment is about you. You have been a snare at Mizpah and a net spread upon Tabor.

2 »The rebels are eager to kill. I will correct them all.

3 »I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hid from me. O Ephraim, you have played the harlot and Israel is defiled.

4 »They will not consecrate their deeds to their God because the spirit of fornication is in them. They do not know Jehovah.

5 »The pride of Israel testifies about them. Therefore Israel and Ephraim will stumble in their iniquity. Judah will also stumble with them.

6 »They will go with their flocks and with their herds to seek Jehovah. But they will not find him. He has withdrawn from them.

7 »They have dealt treacherously against Jehovah! They have borne strange children: now the new moon will devour them with their fields.

8 »Blow the horn in Gibeah, and the trumpet in Ramah: sound an alarm at Bethaven behind you, O Benjamin.

9 »Ephraim will become desolation in the day of rebuke among the tribes of Israel. I made known that which will surely be.

10 »The princes of Judah are like them that remove the landmark. I will pour my wrath upon them like water.

11 »Ephraim is oppressed. He is crushed in judgment because he was content to walk after man's command.

12 »I am like a moth to Ephraim and to the house of Judah as rottenness.

13 »When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah saw his wound, Ephraim went to Assyria and sent to King Jareb. He is not able to heal you, neither will he cure you of your wound.

14 »For I will be to Ephraim as a lion. And I will be like a young lion to the house of Judah. I, even I, will tear and go away. I will carry off and there will be none to deliver.

15 »I will go and return to my place, till they acknowledge their offence, and seek me. They will seek me earnestly in their affliction.«