Now when Lo-ruhamah had been taken from the breast, the woman gave birth to a son.

And the children of Israel and the children of Judah will come together and take for themselves one head, and will go up from the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel.

Take up the cause against your mother, take it up, for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband; let her put away her loose ways from her face, and her false ways from between her breasts;

For fear that I may take away her robe from her, making her uncovered as in the day of her birth; making her like a waste place and a dry land, causing her death through need of water.

And I will give her vine-gardens from there, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope; and she will give her answer there as in the days when she was young, and as in the time when she came up out of the land of Egypt.

My people get knowledge from their tree, and their rod gives them news; for a false spirit is the cause of their wandering, and they have been false to their God.

I have knowledge of Ephraim, and Israel is not secret from me; for now, O Ephraim, you have been false to me, Israel has become unclean.

They are all untrue; they are like a burning oven; the bread-maker does not make up the fire from the time when the paste is mixed till it is leavened.

Men from other lands have made waste his strength, and he is not conscious of it; grey hairs have come on him here and there, and he has no knowledge of it.

May trouble be theirs! for they have gone far away from me; and destruction, for they have been sinning against me; I was ready to be their saviour, but they said false words against me.

As I have seen a beast whose young have been taken from her, so Ephraim will give birth to children only for them to be put to death.

O Israel, you have done evil from the days of Gibeah; there they took up their position, so that the fighting against the children of evil might not overtake them in Gibeah.

So a great outcry will go up from among your people, and all your strong places will be broken, as Beth-arbel was broken by Shalman in the day of war, as the mother was broken on the rocks with her children.

When I sent for them, then they went away from me; they made offerings to the Baals, burning perfumes to images.

I made them come after me with the cords of a man, with the bands of love; I was to them as one who took the yoke from off their mouths, putting meat before them.

They will go after the Lord; his cry will be like that of a lion; his cry will be loud, and the children will come from the west, shaking with fear;

But I am the Lord your God from the land of Egypt; I will give you tents for your living-places again as in the days of the holy meeting.

When the words of my law came from Ephraim, he was lifted up in Israel; but when he did evil through the Baal, death overtook him.

And now their sins are increased; they have made themselves a metal image, false gods from their silver, after their designs, all of them the work of the metal-workers; they say of them, Let them give offerings, let men give kisses to the oxen.

So they will be like the morning cloud, like the dew which goes early away, like the dust of the grain which the wind is driving out of the crushing-floor, like smoke going up from the fireplace.

But I am the Lord your God, from the land of Egypt; you have knowledge of no other God and there is no saviour but me.

I will come face to face with them like a bear whose young ones have been taken from her, and their inmost hearts will be broken; there the dogs will make a meal of them; they will be wounded by the beasts of the field.

I will give the price to make them free from the power of the underworld, I will be their saviour from death: O death! where are your pains? O underworld! where is your destruction? my eyes will have no pity.

Though he gives fruit among his brothers, an east wind will come, the wind of the Lord coming up from the waste land, and his spring will become dry, his fountain will be without water: it will make waste the store of all the vessels of his desire.

I will put right their errors; freely will my love be given to them, for my wrath is turned away from him.

As for Ephraim, what has he to do with false gods any longer? I have given an answer and I will keep watch over him; I am like a branching fir-tree, from me comes your fruit.