CHAPTER 9

1 Rejoice not, Israel, with joy like that of the people; For thou hast become wanton from thy God; Thou hast loved wages on all the floors of corn. --

2 The floor and the vat shall not feed them, And the new wine shall disappoint them:

3 They shall not dwell in the land of Jehovah; And return shall Ephraim to Egypt, And in Assyria they shall eat what is unclean:

4 To Jehovah they shall not pour wine, And acceptable to him shall not be their libations; Their sacrifices shall be to them as the bread of mourners, -- Whosoever will eat shall be polluted; For their bread for their soul, It shall not come into the house of Jehovah.

5 What will ye do on the solemn day, On the festal-day of Jehovah?

6 For, behold, they are gone away on account of desolation; -- Egypt will gather them, Memphis will bury them. The wished-for store of their silver will the nettle possess, -- The thorn shall be in their tents.

7 The days of visitation have come, The days of retribution have come: Israel shall know the prophet to be foolish, And mad the man of the spirit, -- For the number of thy iniquity and great hatred.

8 The watchman of Ephraim for my God, the prophet, Is a snare of a fowler on all his ways, A hateful thing in the house of his God. -- (327)

9 They are deeply fixed, corrupt are they as in the days of Gibeah: He will remember their iniquity, he will visit their sins.

10 As grapes in the desert I found Israel, As the first fruit of the fig-tree, at its beginning, I saw your fathers: -- They went in into Baalpeor, And separated themselves unto shame, And became abominable like their lovers.

11 Ephraim! -- as a bird has fled their glory -- (336) From the birth, and from the womb, and from the conception:

12 For if they bring up their children, I shall exterminate them, that they shall not be men: -- Surely, woe to them, when I shall depart from them!

13 Ephraim, as I have seen in Tyrus, Is a tree planted in a house: (339) Yet Ephraim is to bring forth to the slaughter his children!

14 "Give to them, Jehovah, -- what wilt thou give? Give to them an abortive womb and dry breasts."

15 All their evil is in Gilgal; For there I conceived hatred against them: On account of the wickedness of their works, From my house I will cast them out; I will not continue to love them; -- All their princes are apostates.

16 Smitten has Ephraim been; Their root has dried up, -- fruit they will not bear: And if they bring forth, I will slay The wished--for fruit of their womb. --

17 Cast them away will my God; For they hearkened not to him: And they shall be wanderers among the nations.