9:1 Do 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.
9:2 Threshing-floor and wine vat shall not feed them, and the new wine shall fail them.
9:3 They shall not remain in the land of the Lord; but Ephraim shall return to Egypt, and in Assyria they shall eat unclean food.
9:4 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.
9:5 What will you do on the day of appointed festival, and on the day of the festival of the Lord?
9:6 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.
9:7 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.
9:8 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.
9:9 They have deeply corrupted themselves as in the days of Gibeah; he will remember their iniquity, he will punish their sins.
9:10 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.
9:11 Ephraim’s glory shall fly away like a bird— no birth, no pregnancy, no conception!
9:12 Even if they bring up children, I will bereave them until no one is left. Woe to them indeed when I depart from them!
9:13 Once I saw Ephraim as a young palm planted in a lovely meadow, but now Ephraim must lead out his children for slaughter.
9:14 Give them, O Lord— what will you give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.
9:15 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.
9:16 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.
9:17 Because they have not listened to him, my God will reject them; they shall become wanderers among the nations.
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