# Chapter 9
1 Israel, do not rejoice jubilantly as the nations do,
for you have acted promiscuously, leaving your God.
You love the wages of a prostitute
on every grain-threshing floor.
2 Threshing floor and wine vat will not sustain them,
and the new wine will fail them.
3 They will not stay in the land of the Lord.
Instead, Ephraim will return to Egypt,
and they will eat unclean food in Assyria.
4 They will not pour out
their wine offerings to the Lord,
and their sacrifices will not please him.
Their food will be like the bread of mourners;
all who eat it become defiled.
For their bread will be for their appetites alone;
it will not enter the house of the Lord.
5 What will you do on a festival day,
on the day of the Lord’s feast?
6 For even if they flee from devastation,
Egypt will gather them, and Memphis will bury them.
Thistles will take possession of their precious silver;
thorns will invade their tents.
7 The days of punishment have come;
the days of retribution have come.
Let Israel recognize it!
The prophet is a fool,
and the inspired man is insane,
because of the magnitude
of your iniquity and hostility.
8 Ephraim’s watchman is with my God.
Yet the prophet encounters a bird trap
on all his pathways.
Hostility is in the house of his God!
9 They have deeply corrupted themselves
as in the days of Gibeah.
He will remember their iniquity;
he will punish their sins.
10 I discovered Israel
like grapes in the wilderness.
I saw your ancestors
like the first fruit of the fig tree in its first season.
But they went to Baal-peor,
consecrated themselves to Shame,
and became abhorrent,
like the thing they loved.
11 Ephraim’s glory will fly away like a bird:
no birth, no pregnancy, no conception.
12 Even if they raise children,
I will bereave them of each one.
Yes, woe to them when I depart from them!
13 I have seen Ephraim like Tyre,
planted in a meadow,
so Ephraim will bring out his children
to the executioner.
14 Give them, Lord—
What should you give?
Give them a womb that miscarries
and breasts that are dry!
15 All their evil appears at Gilgal,
for there I began to hate them.
I will drive them from my house
because of their evil, wicked actions.
I will no longer love them;
all their leaders are rebellious.
16 Ephraim is struck down;
their roots are withered;
they cannot bear fruit.
Even if they bear children,
I will kill the precious offspring of their wombs.
17 My God will reject them
because they have not listened to him;
they will become wanderers among the nations.