Hear the word of the LORD, O ye children of Israel: For the LORD must punish them, that dwell in the land. And why? There is no faithfulness, there is no mercy, there is no knowledge of God in the land:

My people ask counsel at their stocks, their staff must tell them. For a whorish mind hath deceived them, so that they commit fornication against their God.

I will not punish your daughters for being defiled, and your brides that became whores: seeing the fathers themselves have meddled with harlots, and offered with unthriftiness: but the people that will not understand must be punished.

Therefore must Ephraim be mixed among the Heathen. Ephraim is become like a cake that no man turneth:

Woe be unto them, for they have forsaken me. They must be destroyed, for they have set me at naught. I am he that have redeemed them, and yet they dissemble with me.

They have ordained kings, but not through me: they have made princes, and I must not know of it. Of their silver and gold have they made them images, to bring themselves to destruction.

Ephraim, as me think, is planted in wealthiness, like as Tyre, but now must she bring her own children forth to the manslayer.

The abomination of Ephraim is come also into Israel. He is gone back to Baal, therefore must he die.