They will give no wine offering to the Lord, they will not make offerings ready for him; their bread will be like the bread of those in sorrow; all who take it will be unclean, because their bread will be only for their desire, it will not come into the house of the Lord.

For see, they are going away into Assyria; Egypt will get them together, Memphis will be their last resting-place; their fair silver vessels will be covered over with field plants, and thorns will come up in their tents.

There is great hate against the watchman of Ephraim, the people of my God; as for the prophet, there is a net in all his ways, and hate in the house of his God.

They have gone deep in evil as in the days of Gibeah; he will keep in mind their wrongdoing, he will give them punishment for their sins.

As for Ephraim, their glory will go in flight like a bird: there will be no birth and no one with child and no giving of life.

Even though their children have come to growth I will take them away, so that not a man will be there; for their evil-doing will be complete and they will be put to shame because of it.

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.

All their evil-doing is in Gilgal; there I had hate for them; because of their evil-doing I will send them out of my house; they will no longer be dear to me; all their rulers are uncontrolled.

Israel is a branching vine, full of fruit; as his fruit is increased, so the number of his altars is increased; as the land is fair, so they have made fair pillars.

Now, truly, they will say, We have no king, we have no fear of the Lord; and the king, what is he able to do for us?

The people of Samaria will be full of fear because of the ox of Beth-aven; its people will have sorrow for it, and its priests will give cries of grief for its glory, for the glory has gone in flight.

As for Samaria, her king is cut off, like mist on the water.

And Ephraim is a trained cow, taking pleasure in crushing the grain; but I have put a yoke on her fair neck; I will put a horseman on the back of Ephraim; Judah will be working the plough, Jacob will be turning up the earth.

Put in the seed of righteousness, get in your grain in mercy, let your unploughed earth be turned up: for it is time to make search for the Lord, till he comes and sends righteousness on you like rain.

You have been ploughing sin, you have got in a store of evil, the fruit of deceit has been your food: for you put faith in your way, in the number of your men of war.

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

I will not put into effect the heat of my wrath; I will not again send destruction on Ephraim; for I am God and not man, the Holy One among you; I will not put an end to you.

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;

Shaking with fear like a bird, they will come out of Egypt, like a dove out of the land of Assyria: and I will give them rest in their houses, says the Lord.

The Lord has a cause against Judah, and will give punishment to Jacob for his ways; he will give him the reward of his acts.

He had a fight with the angel and overcame him; he made request for grace to him with weeping; he came face to face with him in Beth-el and there his words came to him;

As for Canaan, the scales of deceit are in his hands; he takes pleasure in twisted ways.

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.

And Jacob went in flight into the field of Aram, and Israel became a servant for a wife, and for a wife he kept sheep.

The pains of a woman in childbirth will come on him: he is an unwise son, for at this time it is not right for him to keep his place when children come to birth.

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.

Samaria will be made waste, for she has gone against her God: they will be cut down by the sword, their little children will be broken on the rocks, their women who are with child will be cut open.

O Israel, come back to the Lord your God; for your evil-doing has been the cause of your fall.

Take with you words, and come back to the Lord; say to him, Let there be forgiveness for all wrongdoing, so that we may take what is good, and give in payment the fruit of our lips.

Assyria will not be our salvation; we will not go on horses; we will not again say to the work of our hands, You are our gods; for in you there is mercy for the child who has no father.

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.

He who is wise will see these things; he who has good sense will have knowledge of them. For the ways of the Lord are straight, and the upright will go in them, but sinners will be falling in them.

What the worm did not make a meal of, has been taken by the locust; and what the locust did not take, has been food for the plant-worm; and what the plant-worm did not take, has been food for the field-fly.

Come out of your sleep, you who are overcome with wine, and give yourselves to weeping; give cries of sorrow, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine; for it has been cut off from your mouths.

For a nation has come up over my land, strong and without number; his teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he has the back teeth of a great lion.

Make sounds of grief like a virgin dressed in haircloth for the husband of her early years.

The fields are wasted, the land has become dry; for the grain is wasted, the new wine is kept back, the oil is poor.

The farmers are shamed, the workers in the vine-gardens give cries of grief, for the wheat and the barley; for the produce of the fields has come to destruction.

Put haircloth round you and give yourselves to sorrow, you priests; give cries of grief, you servants of the altar: come in, and, clothed in haircloth, let the night go past, you servants of my God: for the meal offering and the drink offering have been kept back from the house of your God.

Let a time be fixed for going without food, have a holy meeting, let the old men, even all the people of the land, come together to the house of the Lord your God, crying out to the Lord.

Sorrow for the day! for the day of the Lord is near, and as destruction from the Ruler of all it will come.

The grains have become small and dry under the spade; the store-houses are made waste, the grain-stores are broken down; for the grain is dry and dead.

What sounds of pain come from the beasts! the herds of cattle are at a loss because there is no grass for them; even the flocks of sheep are no longer to be seen.

O Lord, my cry goes up to you: for fire has put an end to the grass-lands of the waste, and all the trees of the field are burned with its flame.

The beasts of the field are turning to you with desire: for the water-streams are dry and fire has put an end to the grass-lands of the waste.

Let the horn be sounded in Zion, and a war-cry in my holy mountain; let all the people of the land be troubled: for the day of the Lord is coming;

For a day of dark and deep shade is near, a day of cloud and black night: like a black cloud a great and strong people is covering the mountains; there has never been any like them and will not be after them again, from generation to generation.

Before them fire sends destruction, and after them flame is burning: the land is like the garden of Eden before them, and after them an unpeopled waste; truly, nothing has been kept safe from them.

Like the sound of war-carriages they go jumping on the tops of the mountains; like the noise of a flame of fire burning up the grain-stems, like a strong people lined up for the fight.

And the Lord is thundering before his forces; for very great is his army; for he is strong who gives effect to his word: for the day of the Lord is great and greatly to be feared, and who has strength against it?

Let your hearts be broken, and not your clothing, and come back to the Lord your God: for he is full of grace and pity, slow to be angry and great in mercy, ready to be turned from his purpose of punishment.

May it not be that he will again let his purpose be changed and let a blessing come after him, even a meal offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God?

Let a horn be sounded in Zion, let a time be fixed for going without food, have a holy meeting:

Get the people together, make the mass of the people holy, send for the old men, get together the children and babies at the breast: let the newly married man come out of his room and the bride from her tent.

Then the Lord had a care for the honour of his land and had pity on his people.

I will send the one from the north far away from you, driving him into a dry and waste land, with his front to the sea of the east and his back to the sea of the west, and the smell of him will go up, even his evil smell will go up.

Have no fear, O land; be glad with great joy; for the Lord has done great things.

Have no fear, you beasts of the field, for the grass-lands of the waste are becoming green, for the trees are producing fruit, the fig-tree and the vine give out their strength.

Be glad, then, you children of Zion, and have joy in the Lord your God: for he gives you food in full measure, making the rain come down for you, the early and the late rain as at the first.

I will give back to you the years which were food for the locust, the plant-worm, the field-fly, and the worm, my great army which I sent among you.

You will have food in full measure, and give praise to the name of the Lord your God, who has done wonders for you:

And I will let wonders be seen in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and pillars of smoke.

And it will be that whoever makes his prayer to the name of the Lord will be kept safe: for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem some will be kept safe, as the Lord has said, and will be among the small band marked out by the Lord.

For in those days and in that time, when I let the fate of Judah and Jerusalem be changed,

And they have put the fate of my people to the decision of chance: giving a boy for the price of a loose woman and a girl for a drink of wine.

For you have taken my silver and my gold, putting in the houses of your gods my beautiful and pleasing things.

And the children of Judah and the children of Jerusalem you have given for a price to the sons of the Greeks, to send them far away from their land:

I will give your sons and your daughters into the hands of the children of Judah for a price, and they will give them for a price to the men of Sheba, a nation far off: for the Lord has said it.

Give this out among the nations; make ready for war: get the strong men awake; let all the men of war come near, let them come up.

Let the nations be awake, and come to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there I will be seated as judge of all the nations round about.

Put in the blade, for the grain is ready: come, get you down, for the wine-crusher is full, the vessels are overflowing; for great is their evil-doing.

Masses on masses in the valley of decision! for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.

And the Lord will be thundering from Zion, and his voice will be sounding from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth will be shaking: but the Lord will be a breastplate for his people and a strong place for the children of Israel.

But Judah will be peopled for ever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation.

And I will send punishment for their blood, for which punishment has not been sent, for the Lord is living in Zion.

These are the words of the Lord: For three crimes of Damascus, and for four, I will not let its fate be changed; because they have been crushing Gilead with iron grain-crushing instruments.

And I will send a fire into the house of Hazael, burning up the great houses of Ben-hadad.

These are the words of the Lord: For three crimes of Gaza, and for four, I will not let its fate be changed; because they took all the people away prisoners, to give them up to Edom.

And I will send a fire on the wall of Gaza, burning up its great houses:

These are the words of the Lord: For three crimes of Tyre, and for four, I will not let its fate be changed; because they gave up all the people prisoners to Edom, without giving a thought to the brothers' agreement between them.

And I will send a fire on the wall of Tyre, burning up its great houses.

These are the words of the Lord: For three crimes of Edom, and for four, I will not let its fate be changed; because his sword was turned against his brother, without pity, and his wrath was burning at all times, and he was angry for ever.

And I will send a fire on Teman, burning up the great houses of Bozrah.

These are the words of the Lord: For three crimes of the children of Ammon, and for four, I will not let its fate be changed; because in Gilead they had women with child cut open, so that they might make wider the limits of their land.

And I will make a fire in the wall of Rabbah, burning up its great houses, with loud cries in the days of war, with a storm in the day of the great wind:

These are the words of the Lord: For three crimes of Moab, and for four, I will not let its fate be changed; because he had the bones of the king of Edom burned to dust.

And I will send a fire on Moab, burning up the great houses of Kerioth: and death will come on Moab with noise and outcries and the sound of the horn:

These are the words of the Lord: For three crimes of Judah, and for four, I will not let its fate be changed; because they have given up the law of the Lord, and have not kept his rules; and their false ways, in which their fathers went, have made them go out of the right way.

And I will send a fire on Judah, burning up the great houses of Jerusalem.

These are the words of the Lord: For three crimes of Israel, and for four, I will not let its fate be changed; because they have given the upright man for silver, and the poor for the price of two shoes;

By every altar they are stretched on clothing taken from those who are in their debt, drinking in the house of their god the wine of those who have made payment for wrongdoing.

And I took you up out of the land of Egypt, guiding you for forty years in the waste land, so that you might take for your heritage the land of the Amorite.

And some of your sons I made prophets, and some of your young men I made separate for myself. Is it not even so, O children of Israel? says the Lord.

But to those who were separate you gave wine for drink; and to the prophets you said, Be prophets no longer.

And flight will be impossible for the quick-footed, and the force of the strong will become feeble, and the man of war will not get away safely:

And he who is without fear among the fighting men will go in flight without his clothing in that day, says the Lord.

You only of all the families of the earth have I taken care of: for this reason I will send punishment on you for all your sins.

Is it possible for two to go walking together, if not by agreement?

Is it possible for a bird to be taken in a net on the earth where no net has been put for him? will the net come up from the earth if it has taken nothing at all?