⁴ Yet let no one contend,
    and let none accuse,
    for with you is my contention, O priest.^[a]
5 You shall stumble by day,
    the prophet also shall stumble with you by night;
    and I will destroy your mother.
⁶ My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge;
    because you have rejected knowledge,
    I reject you from being a priest to me.
And since you have forgotten the law of your God,
    I also will forget your children.

⁷ The more they increased,
    the more they sinned against me;
    I will change their glory into shame.
⁸ They feed on the sin of my people;
    they are greedy for their iniquity.
⁹ And it shall be like people, like priest;
    I will punish them for their ways,
    and requite them for their deeds.
¹⁰ They shall eat, but not be satisfied;
    they shall play the harlot, but not multiply;
because they have forsaken the Lord
    to cherish harlotry.

Therefore your daughters play the harlot,
    and your brides commit adultery.
¹⁴ I will not punish your daughters when they play the harlot,
    nor your brides when they commit adultery;
for the men themselves go aside with harlots,
    and sacrifice with cult prostitutes,
and a people without understanding shall come to ruin.

¹⁵ Though you play the harlot, O Israel,
    let not Judah become guilty.
Enter not into Gilgal,
    nor go up to Beth-a′ven,
    and swear not, “As the Lord lives.”
¹⁶ Like a stubborn heifer,
    Israel is stubborn;
can the Lord now feed them
    like a lamb in a broad pasture?

¹⁷ E′phraim is joined to idols,
    let him alone.
¹⁸ A band^[b] of drunkards, they give themselves to harlotry;
    they love shame more than their glory.^[c]
19 A wind has wrapped them^[d] in its wings,
    and they shall be ashamed because of their altars.^[e]

³ I know E′phraim,
    and Israel is not hid from me;
for now, O E′phraim, you have played the harlot,
    Israel is defiled.
⁴ Their deeds do not permit them
    to return to their God.
For the spirit of harlotry is within them,
    and they know not the Lord.

⁵ The pride of Israel testifies to his face;
    E′phraim ^[g] shall stumble in his guilt;
    Judah also shall stumble with them.
⁶ With their flocks and herds they shall go
    to seek the Lord,
but they will not find him;
    he has withdrawn from them.
⁷ They have dealt faithlessly with the Lord;
    for they have borne alien children.
    Now the new moon shall devour them with their fields.

⁸ Blow the horn in Gib′e-ah,
    the trumpet in Ramah.
Sound the alarm at Beth-a′ven;
    tremble,^[h] O Benjamin!
⁹ E′phraim shall become a desolation
    in the day of punishment;
among the tribes of Israel
    I declare what is sure.
¹⁰ The princes of Judah have become
    like those who remove the landmark;
upon them I will pour out
    my wrath like water.
¹¹ E′phraim is oppressed, crushed in judgment,
    because he was determined to go after vanity.^[i]
12 Therefore I am like a moth to E′phraim,
    and like dry rot to the house of Judah.

¹³ When E′phraim saw his sickness,
    and Judah his wound,
then E′phraim went to Assyria,
    and sent to the great king.^[j]
But he is not able to cure you
    or heal your wound.
¹⁴ For I will be like a lion to E′phraim,
    and like a young lion to the house of Judah.
I, even I, will rend and go away,
    I will carry off, and none shall rescue.

¹⁵ I will return again to my place,
    until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face,
    and in their distress they seek me, saying,