1 Ephraim keepeth the air, and followeth after the east wind: he is ever increasing lies and destruction. They be confederate with the Assyrians, their oil is carried into Egypt.
2 The LORD hath a court to hold with Judah, and will punish Jacob: After their own ways and according to their own inventions, shall he recompense them.
3 He took his brother by the heel, when he was yet in his mother's womb: and in his strength he wrestled with God.
4 He strove with the angel, and gat the victory: so that he prayed and desired him. He found him at Bethel, and there he talked with us.
5 Yea, the LORD God of hosts, even the LORD himself remembered him:
6 Then turn to thy God, keep mercy and equity, and hope still in thy God.
7 But the merchant hath a false weight in his hand, he hath a pleasure to occupy extortion.
8 Ephraim thinketh thus, "Tush, I am rich, I have good enough: In all my works shall not one fault be found, that I have offended."
9 Yet am I the LORD thy God, even as when I brought thee out of the land of Egypt, and set thee in thy tents, and as in the high feast days.
10 I have spoken through the prophets, and showed divers visions, and declared myself by the ministration of the prophets.
11 But at Gilead is the abomination, they are fallen to vanity. At Gilgal they have slain oxen: and as many heaps of stones as they had in their land furrows, so many altars have they made.
12 Jacob fled into the land of Syria, and Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he kept sheep.
13 By a prophet the LORD brought them out of Egypt, and by a prophet he preserved them.
14 But Ephraim hath provoked him to displeasure through his abominations; therefore shall his blood be poured upon himself, and the LORD his God shall reward him his blasphemies.