Chapter 7
When I would have restored the fortunes of my people,
1 when I would have healed Israel,
The guilt of Ephraim was revealed,
the wickedness of Samaria:
They practiced falsehood.
Thieves break in,
bandits roam outside.
2 Yet they do not call to mind
that I remember all their wickedness.(A)
Now their crimes surround them,
present to my sight.(B)
Israel’s Domestic Politics
3 With their wickedness they make the king rejoice,
the princes too, with their treacherous deeds.
4 They are all adulterers,
like a blazing oven,
Which the baker quits stoking,
after the dough’s kneading until its rising.
5 On the day of our king,
they made the princes sick with poisoned wine;
he extended his hand to the scoffers.
6 For they draw near in ambush
with their hearts like an oven.
All the night their anger sleeps;
in the morning it flares like a blazing fire.
7 They are all heated like ovens,
and consume their rulers.
All their kings have fallen;
none of them calls upon me.
Israel’s Foreign Politics
8 Ephraim is mixed with the nations,
Ephraim is an unturned cake.
9 Strangers have consumed his strength,
but he does not know it;(C)
Gray hairs are strewn on his head,
but he takes no notice of it.
10 The arrogance of Israel bears witness against him;
yet they do not return to the Lord, their God,
nor seek him, despite all this.(D)
11 Ephraim is like a dove,
silly and senseless;
They call upon Egypt,
they go to Assyria.
12 When they go I will spread my net around them,
like birds in the air I will bring them down.(E)
I will chastise them when I hear of their assembly.
13 Woe to them, for they have strayed from me!
Ruin to them, for they have rebelled against me!
Though I wished to redeem them,
they spoke lies against me.
14 They have not cried to me from their hearts
when they wailed upon their beds;
For wheat and wine they lacerated themselves;
they rebelled against me.
15 Though I trained and strengthened their arms,
yet they devised evil against me.
16 They have again become useless,
they have been like a treacherous bow.(F)
Their princes shall fall by the sword
because of the insolence of their tongues;
thus they shall be mocked in the land of Egypt.
Footnotes
- 7:3–7
- 7:4
- 7:8
- 7:14
Cross references
- 7:2 : Ps 10:11.
- 7:2 : Prv 5:21–22.
- 7:9 : Jer 5:3; Rev 3:17.
- 7:10 : Is 9:12; Am 4:6.
- 7:12 : Ez 12:13; 32:3.
- 7:16 : Ps 78:57.
