Iniquity of Senseless Ephraim
7 “When I would have healed Israel,
the iniquity of Ephraim was uncovered,
even the wickedness of Samaria,
for they practice fraud.
So a thief breaks in;
a marauding band will raid outside.
2 But they never admit in their heart
that I remember all their evil.
Now their deeds are all around them.
They are right before My face.
3 They gladden the king with their evil
and the princes with their lies.
4 All of them are practicing adultery,
as an oven heated by a baker who stops stirring
or kneading dough when it is leavened.
5 On the day of our king,
princes become sick from wine.
His hand drags scorners along.
6 For their hearts are like an oven,
as they wait in ambush.
All night their anger smolders.
In the morning it burns like a blazing fire.
7 All of them are hot like an oven,
and they devour their rulers.
All of their kings have fallen.
None among them calls on Me.
8 Ephraim mixes himself with the peoples.
Ephraim has become a pancake
that never gets turned over.
9 Strangers devoured his strength—
yet he does not know it.
Gray hairs have spread on him—
and he does not know it.
10 Though the Pride of Israel
has answered him to his face,
yet they did not return
to Adonai their God,
nor seek Him about all this.
11 Ephraim is like a senseless silly dove,
they call to Egypt; they go to Assyria.
12 As they are going,
I will spread out My net over them,
I will bring them down like a bird from the sky.
I will chasten them as in the report
that comes to their assembly.
13 Oy to them!
For they strayed from Me.
Devastation to them!
For they rebelled against Me.
Should I redeem them
after they spoke lies about Me?
14 Nor did they not cry to Me in their heart
when they were wailing on their beds.
For the sake of grain and new wine
they slash themselves—
they keep turning away from Me.
15 I trained and strengthened their arms,
yet they kept planning evil against Me.
16 They will turn back—only not upwards.
They are like a treacherous bow.
Their princes will fall by the sword
because of the insolence with their tongues.
This will be for their ridicule in the land of Egypt.