Therefore, lo, I am hedging up thy way with thorns, And I have made for her a wall, And her paths she doth not find.

And it hath been, like people, like priest, And I have charged on it its ways, And its habitual doings I return to it.

And as bands do wait for a man, A company of priests do murder -- the way to Shechem, For wickedness they have done.

Ephraim is looking away from My God, The prophet! a snare of a fowler is over all his ways, Hatred is in the house of his God.

Ye have ploughed wickedness, Perversity ye have reaped, Ye have eaten the fruit of lying, For thou hast trusted in thy way, In the abundance of thy might.

And a controversy hath Jehovah with Judah, To lay a charge on Jacob according to his ways, According to his doings He returneth to him.

And I am to them as a lion, As a leopard by the way I look out.

Who is wise, and doth understand these? Prudent, and knoweth them? For upright are the ways of Jehovah, And the righteous go on in them, And the transgressors stumble therein!