Then she will pursue {her lovers}, but she will not overtake them; she will seek them and not find [them]; and she will say, "I will go and return to my first husband because [it was] better for me then than now."

And now I will uncover her nakedness before the eyes of her lovers, and no one will rescue her from my hand.

Indeed, like a stubborn heifer, Israel is stubborn; Now Yahweh will feed them, like a lamb in broad pasture.

I myself know Ephraim, and Israel is not hidden from me; because now you have played the whore, Ephraim-- Israel is defiled.

They have dealt faithlessly with Yahweh because they have borne illegitimate children. Now [the] new moon will devour them with their fields.

{But they did not consider} that I remember all their wickedness. Now their deeds surround them; they are before my face.

Israel is swallowed up; now they are among the nations, like an object that no one desires.

Even though they have sold themselves to the nations, now I will gather them. They will soon writhe from the burden of kings and princes.

They offer sacrifices of my choice and they eat flesh; Yahweh does not accept them. Now he will remember their iniquity and punish their sins; they will return [to] Egypt.

Their heart is false; now they must bear [their] guilt. He himself will break down their altars; he will destroy their stone pillars.

For now they will say, "We have no king; indeed, we did not fear Yahweh, and what can a king do for us?"

And now they sin again, and they make for themselves a molten idol, idols from their silver metal according to their understanding, all of them the work of skilled craftsmen. To these they say, "Sacrifice!" People are kissing bull calves.

Where now [is] your king that he may save you? [Where] in all your cities [are] your judges, of whom you said, "Give to me a king and rulers?"