But you have plowed wickedness; you have reaped injustice; you have eaten the fruit of deception. Because you have depended on your chariots; ¹  you have relied ²  on your many warriors.

You stumble day and night, and the false prophets stumble with you; You have destroyed your own people! ¹ 

I will destroy you, ¹  O Israel! Who ²  is there to help you?

I will commit myself to you in faithfulness; then ¹  you will acknowledge ²  the Lord.” ³ 

You have destroyed ¹  my people by failing to acknowledge me! Because you refuse to acknowledge me, ²  I will reject you as my priests. Because you reject ³  the law of your God, I will reject ⁴  your descendants.

Hear this, you priests! Pay attention, you Israelites! ¹  Listen closely, ²  O king! ³  For judgment is about to overtake you! ⁴  For you were like a trap ⁵  to Mizpah, ⁶  like a net ⁷  spread out to catch Tabor. ⁸ 

Israel cries out to me, “My God, we acknowledge you!”

Then you will call ¹  your ²  brother, “My People” (Ammi)! You will call your sister, “Pity” (Ruhamah)!

Then I told her, “You must live with me many days; you must not commit adultery or have sexual intercourse with ¹  another man, and I also will wait for you.”

“At that time,” ¹  declares the Lord, “you will call, ²  ‘My husband’; ³  you will never again call me, ⁴  ‘My master.’ ⁵ 

I will commit myself to you ¹  forever; I will commit myself to you in ²  righteousness and justice, in steadfast love and tender compassion.

How can I give you up, ¹  O Ephraim? How can I surrender you, O Israel? How can I treat you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboiim? I have had a change of heart! ²  All my tender compassions are aroused! ³ 

I cared ¹  for you in the wilderness, in the dry desert where no water was. ² 

“I am the Lord your God ¹  who brought you ²  out of Egypt; I will make you live in tents again as in the days of old. ³ 

O Israel, do not rejoice jubilantly ¹  like the nations, for you are unfaithful ²  to your God. You love to receive a prostitute's wages ³  on all the floors where you thresh your grain.

But I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt. Therefore, you must not acknowledge any God but me; except me there is no Savior.

O Israel, you have sinned since the time ¹  of Gibeah, and there you have remained. Did not war overtake the evildoers in Gibeah?

So what will you do on the festival day, on the festival days of the Lord?

Where ¹  then is your king, that he may save you in all your cities? Where are ²  your rulers for whom you asked, saying, “Give me a king and princes”?

But you must return ¹  to your God, by maintaining love and justice, and by waiting ²  for your God to return to you. ³