1 - When Ephraim spoke, people trembled; he was exalted in Israel. But he became guilty of Baal worship and died.
2 - Now they sin more and more; they make idols for themselves from their silver, cleverly fashioned images, all of them the work of craftsmen. It is said of these people, "They offer human sacrifices! They kiss
3 - Therefore they will be like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears, like chaff swirling from a threshing floor, like smoke escaping through a window.
4 - "But I have been the Lord your God ever since you came out of Egypt. You shall acknowledge no God but me, no Savior except me.
5 - I cared for you in the wilderness, in the land of burning heat.
6 - When I fed them, they were satisfied; when they were satisfied, they became proud; then they forgot me.
7 - So I will be like a lion to them, like a leopard I will lurk by the path.
8 - Like a bear robbed of her cubs, I will attack them and rip them open; like a lion I will devour them - a wild animal will tear them apart.
9 - "You are destroyed, Israel, because you are against me, against your helper.
10 - Where is your king, that he may save you? Where are your rulers in all your towns, of whom you said, 'Give me a king and princes'?
11 - So in my anger I gave you a king, and in my wrath I took him away.
12 - The guilt of Ephraim is stored up, his sins are kept on record.
13 - Pains as of a woman in childbirth come to him, but he is a child without wisdom; when the time arrives, he doesn't have the sense to come out of the womb.
14 - "I will deliver this people from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death. Where, O death, are your plagues? Where, O grave, is your destruction? "I will have no compassion,
15 - even though he thrives among his brothers. An east wind from the Lord will come, blowing in from the desert; his spring will fail and his well dry up. His storehouse will be plundered of all its treasures.
16 - The people of Samaria must bear their guilt, because they have rebelled against their God. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to the ground, their pregnant women ripped open."