1 When I would have healed Israel,

Then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria:

For they commit falsehood; and the thief cometh in,

And the troop of robbers spoileth without.

2 And they consider not in their hearts

That I remember all their wickedness:

Now their own doings have beset them about;

They are before my face.

3 They make the king glad with their wickedness,

And the princes with their lies.

4 They are all adulterers, as an oven heated by the baker,

Who ceaseth from raising after he hath kneaded the dough, until it be leavened.

5  In the day of our king the princes have made him sick with bottles of wine;

He stretched out his hand with scorners.

6 For they have made ready their heart like an oven, whiles they lie in wait:

Their baker sleepeth all the night;

In the morning it burneth as a flaming fire.

7 They are all hot as an oven,

And have devoured their judges;

All their kings are fallen:

There is none among them that calleth unto me.

8 Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people;

Ephraim is a cake not turned.

9 Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not:

Yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not.

10 And the pride of Israel testifieth to his face:

And they do not return to the Lord their God, nor seek him for all this.

11 Ephraim also is like a silly dove, without heart:

They call to Egypt, they go to Assyria.

12 When they shall go, I will spread my net upon them;

I will bring them down as the fowls of the heaven;

I will chastise them, as their congregation hath heard.

13 Woe unto them! for they have fled from me:

Destruction unto them! because they have transgressed against me:

Though I have redeemed them, yet they have spoken lies against me.

14 And they have not cried unto me with their heart,

When they howled upon their beds:

They assemble themselves for corn and wine,

And they rebel against me.

15 Though I have bound and strengthened their arms,

Yet do they imagine mischief against me.

16 They return, but not to the most High:

They are like a deceitful bow:

Their princes shall fall by the sword for the rage of their tongue:

This shall be their derision in the land of Egypt.