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They have made princes, and I knew it not;

Of their silver and their gold have they made them idols,

That they may be cut off.

⁵Thy calf, O Samaria, is cast off;

Mine anger is kindled against them;

How long will it be ere they attain to innocency?

⁶For from Israel is even this:

The craftsman made it, and it is no God;

Yea, the calf of Samaria shall be broken in shivers.

⁷For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind;

It hath no stalk, the bud that shall yield no meal;

If so be it yield, strangers shall swallow it up.

 

⁸Israel is swallowed up;

Now are they become among the nations

As a vessel wherein is no value.

⁹For they are gone up to Assyria,

Like a wild ass alone by himself;

Ephraim hath hired lovers.

¹⁰Yea, though they hire among the nations,

Now will I gather them up;

And they begin to be minished

By reason of the burden of king and princes.

¹¹For Ephraim hath multiplied altars to sin,

Yea, altars have been unto him to sin.

¹²Though I write for him never so many things of My Law,

They are accounted as a stranger's.

¹³As for the sacrifices that are made by fire unto Me,

Let them sacrifice flesh and eat it,

For the Lord accepteth them not.

Now will He remember their iniquity, and punish their sins;

They shall return to Egypt.

¹⁴For Israel hath forgotten his Maker,

And builded palaces,

And Judah hath multiplied fortified cities;

But I will send a fire upon his cities,

And it shall devour the castles thereof.

 

9Rejoice not, O Israel, unto exultation, like the peoples,

For thou hast gone astray from thy God,

Thou hast loved a harlot's hire upon every corn-floor.

²The threshing-floor and the winepress shall not feed them,

And the new wine shall fail her.

³They shall not dwell in the Lord's land;

But Ephraim shall return to Egypt,

And they shall eat unclean food in Assyria.

⁴They shall not pour out wine-offerings to the Lord,

Neither shall they be pleasing unto Him;

Their sacrifices shall be unto them as the bread of mourners,

All that eat thereof shall be polluted;

For their bread shall be for their appetite,

It shall not come into the house of the Lord.

⁵What will ye do in the day of the appointed season,

And in the day of the feast of the Lord?

⁶For, lo, they are gone away from destruction,

Yet Egypt shall gather them up,

Memphis shall bury them;

Their precious treasures of silver, nettles shall possess them,

Thorns shall be in their tents.

⁷The days of visitation are come,

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