“Where is ^(A)the certificate of your mother’s divorce,
Whom I have put away?
Or which of My ^(B)creditors is it to whom I have sold you?
For your iniquities ^(C)you have sold yourselves,
And for your transgressions your mother has been put away.

¹⁵ “All their wickedness is in ^(A)Gilgal,
For there I hated them.
Because of the evil of their deeds
I will drive them from My house;
I will love them no more.
^(B)All their princes are rebellious.
¹⁶ Ephraim is ^(C)stricken,
Their root is dried up;
They shall bear no fruit.
Yes, were they to bear children,
I would kill the darlings of their womb.”

¹⁷ My God will ^(D)cast them away,
Because they did not obey Him;
And they shall be ^(E)wanderers among the nations.

¹⁵ “Though you, Israel, play the harlot,
Let not Judah offend.
^(A)Do not come up to Gilgal,
Nor go up to ^(B)Beth^[a] Aven,
^(C)Nor swear an oath, saying, ‘As the Lord lives’—

¹⁶ “For Israel ^(D)is stubborn
Like a stubborn calf;
Now the Lord will let them forage
Like a lamb in ^[b]open country.

¹⁷ “Ephraim is joined to idols,
^(E)Let him alone.

¹² “She lusted for the neighboring ^(C)Assyrians,
^(D)Captains and rulers,
Clothed most gorgeously,
Horsemen riding on horses,
All of them desirable young men.
¹³ Then I saw that she was defiled;
Both took the same way.
¹⁴ But she increased her harlotry;
She looked at men portrayed on the wall,
Images of ^(E)Chaldeans portrayed in vermilion,
¹⁵ Girded with belts around their waists,
Flowing turbans on their heads,
All of them looking like captains,
In the manner of the Babylonians of Chaldea,
The land of their nativity.
^16 (F)As soon as her eyes saw them,
She lusted for them
And sent ^(G)messengers to them in Chaldea.

¹⁷ “Then the ^[a]Babylonians came to her, into the bed of love,
And they defiled her with their immorality;
So she was defiled by them, ^(H)and alienated herself from them.
¹⁸ She revealed her harlotry and uncovered her nakedness.
Then ^(I)I ^(J)alienated Myself from her,
As I had alienated Myself from her sister.

¹⁹ “Yet she multiplied her harlotry
In calling to remembrance the days of her youth,
^(K)When she had played the harlot in the land of Egypt.
²⁰ For she lusted for her ^[b]paramours,
Whose flesh is like the flesh of donkeys,
And whose issue is like the issue of horses.
²¹ Thus you called to remembrance the lewdness of your youth,
When the ^(L)Egyptians pressed your bosom
Because of your youthful breasts.