Look! Even if they flee from the destruction, Egypt will take hold of them, and Memphis will bury them. The weeds will inherit the silver they treasure – thorn bushes will occupy their homes.

O Ephraim, I do not want to have anything to do with idols anymore! I will answer him and care for him. I am like a luxuriant cypress tree; your fruitfulness comes from me!

Blow the ram’s horn in Gibeah! Sound the trumpet in Ramah! Sound the alarm in Beth Aven! Tremble in fear, O Benjamin!

Soon I will expose her lewd nakedness in front of her lovers, and no one will be able to rescue her from me!

Do not let anyone accuse or contend against anyone else: for my case is against you priests!

They have gone up to Assyria, like a wild donkey that wanders off. Ephraim has hired prostitutes as lovers.

When Ephraim spoke, there was terror; he was exalted in Israel, but he became guilty by worshiping Baal and died.

The Lord said to me, “Go, show love to your wife again, even though she loves another man and continually commits adultery. Likewise, the Lord loves the Israelites although they turn to other gods and love to offer raisin cakes to idols.”

Then I will return again to my lair until they have suffered their punishment. Then they will seek me; in their distress they will earnestly seek me.

Even if they raise their children, I will take away every last one of them. Woe to them! For I will turn away from them.

Plead earnestly with your mother (for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband), so that she might put an end to her adulterous lifestyle, and turn away from her sexually immoral behavior.

“I will punish her for the festival days when she burned incense to the Baal idols; she adorned herself with earrings and jewelry, and went after her lovers, but she forgot me!” says the Lord.

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.

Then she will pursue her lovers, but she will not catch them; she will seek them, but she will not find them. Then she will say, “I will go back to my husband, because I was better off then than I am now.”