God's judgement on Israel
   3   Therefore they shall be like the morning mist
    or like dew that vanishes early,
  like chaff blown from the threshing-floor
    or smoke from a chimney.
4   But I have been the Lord your God since your days in Egypt,
  when you knew no other saviour than me,
    no god but me.
     5   I cared for you in the wilderness,
   6   in a land of burning heat, as if you were in pasture.
    So they were filled,
  and, being filled, grew proud;
    and so they forgot me.
   7   So now I will be ^note like a panther to them,
  I will prowl like a leopard by the wayside;
   8   I will meet them like a she-bear robbed of her cubs
    and tear their ribs apart,
  like a lioness I will devour them on the spot,
    I will rip them up like a wild beast.
9   I have destroyed you, O Israel; who ^note is there to help you?
   10   Where now is your king that he may save you,
    or the rulers in all your cities
    for whom you asked me,
  begging for king and princes?
   11   I gave you a king in my anger,
    and in my fury took him away.


     12   Ephraim's guilt is tied up in a scroll,
    his sins are kept on record.
   13   When the pangs of his birth came over his mother,
  he showed himself a senseless child;
    for at the proper time he could not present himself
    at the mouth of the womb.
     14   Shall I redeem him from Sheol?
  Shall I ransom him from death?
Oh, for your plagues, O death! Oh, for your sting, Sheol!
  I will put compassion out of my sight.
   15   Though he flourishes among the reeds, ^note
  an east wind shall come, a blast from the Lord,
    rising over the desert;
Ephraim's spring will fail and his fountain run dry.
  It will carry away as spoil
    his whole store of costly treasures.

God's judgement on Israel
16    ^note Samaria will become desolate because she has rebelled against her God;
her babes will fall by the sword and be dashed to the ground,
    her women with child shall be ripped up.

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