6:4 What am I going to do with you, O Ephraim?
What am I going to do with you, O Judah?
For 1 your faithfulness is as fleeting as the morning mist; 2
it disappears as quickly as dawn’s dew! 3
9:5 So what will you do on the festival day,
on the festival days of the Lord?
9:14 Give them, O Lord –
what will you give them?
Give them wombs that miscarry,
and breasts that cannot nurse! 4
10:3 Very soon they will say, “We have no king
since we did not fear the Lord.
But what can a king do for us anyway?”
14:8 O Ephraim, I do not want to have anything to do 5 with idols anymore!
I will answer him and care for him.
I am like 6 a luxuriant cypress tree; 7
your fruitfulness comes from me! 8
1 tn The vav prefixed to וְחַסְדְּכֶם (vÿkhasdÿkhem, “your faithfulness”) functions in an explanatory sense (“For”).
2 tn Heb “your faithfulness [so NCV; NASB “your loyalty”; NIV, NRSV, NLT “your love”] is like a morning cloud” (וְחַסְדְּכֶם כַּעֲנַן־בֹּקֶר, vÿkhasdÿkhem ka’anan-boqer).
3 tn Heb “the dew departing early” (BDB 1014 s.v. שָׁכַם); cf. NRSV “the dew that goes away early.” The Hiphil participle מַשְׁכִּים (mashkim) means “to depart early” (Gen 19:27; Josh 8:14; Judg 19:9). The idiom means “early morning” (1 Sam 17:16).
4 tn Heb “breasts that shrivel up dry”; cf. KJV, NAB, NASB, NRSV “dry breasts.”
7 tn The Hebrew expression מַה־לִּי עוֹד (mah-li ’od) is a formula of repudiation/emphatic denial that God has anything in common with idols: “I want to have nothing to do with […] any more!” Cf., e.g., Judg 11:12; 2 Sam 16:10; 19:23; 1 Kgs 17:18; 2 Kgs 3:13; 2 Chr 35:21; Jer 2:18; Ps 50:16; BDB 553 s.v. מָה 1.d.(c).
8 tn The term “like” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for clarity, as in the majority of English versions (including KJV).
9 tn Cf. KJV “a green fir tree”; NIV, NCV “a green pine tree”; NRSV “an evergreen cypress.”
10 tn Heb “your fruit is found in me”; NRSV “your faithfulness comes from me.”