For they -- they have gone up to Asshur, A wild ass alone by himself is Ephraim, They have hired lovers!

Plead ye with your mother -- plead, (For she is not My wife, and I am not her husband,) And she turneth her whoredoms from before her, And her adulteries from between her breasts,

And she hath pursued her lovers, And she doth not overtake them, And hath sought them, and doth not find, And she hath said: I go, and I turn back unto My first husband, For -- better to me then than now.