So I will pounce on them like a lion; like a leopard I will lurk by the path.

At that time, I will destroy the military power of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.”

I will deal with the people and priests together: I will punish them both for their ways, and I will repay them for their deeds.

Ephraim will be ruined in the day of judgment! What I am declaring to the tribes of Israel will certainly take place!

The princes of Judah are like those who move boundary markers. I will pour out my rage on them like a torrential flood!

They do not realize that I remember all of their wicked deeds. Their evil deeds have now surrounded them; their sinful deeds are always before me.

Ephraim has mixed itself like flour among the nations; Ephraim is like a ruined cake of bread that is scorched on one side.

Ephraim has been like a dove, easily deceived and lacking discernment. They called to Egypt for help; they turned to Assyria for protection.

Israel will be swallowed up among the nations; they will be like a worthless piece of pottery.

Although Ephraim has built many altars for sin offerings, these have become altars for sinning!

My God will reject them, for they have not obeyed him; so they will be fugitives among the nations.

Therefore they will disappear like the morning mist, like early morning dew that evaporates, like chaff that is blown away from a threshing floor, like smoke that disappears through an open window.

I will be like the dew to Israel; he will blossom like a lily, he will send down his roots like a cedar of Lebanon.

His young shoots will grow; his splendor will be like an olive tree, his fragrance like a cedar of Lebanon.

(2:1) However, in the future the number of the people of Israel will be like the sand of the sea which can be neither measured nor numbered. Although it was said to them, “You are not my people,” it will be said to them, “You are children of the living God!”

Then the Lord said: “Name him ‘Not My People’ (Lo-Ammi), because you are not my people and I am not your God.”

“At that time,” declares the Lord, “you will call, ‘My husband’; you will never again call me, ‘My master.’

“At that time, I will willingly respond,” declares the Lord. “I will respond to the sky, and the sky will respond to the ground;

Then I told her, “You must live with me many days; you must not commit adultery or have sexual intercourse with another man, and I also will wait for you.”

They turn to Baal; they are like an unreliable bow. Their leaders will fall by the sword because their prayers to Baal have made me angry. So people will disdain them in the land of Egypt.