[6:1] “Come, let us return to the Lord; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up.
[6:2] After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him.
[6:3] Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.”
[6:4] What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes early away.
[6:5] Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth, and my judgment goes forth as the light.
[6:6] For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
[6:7] But like Adam they transgressed the covenant; there they dealt faithlessly with me.
[6:8] Gilead is a city of evildoers, tracked with blood.
[6:9] As robbers lie in wait for a man, so the priests band together; they murder on the way to Shechem; they commit villainy.
[6:10] In the house of Israel I have seen a horrible thing; Ephraim’s whoredom is there; Israel is defiled.
[6:11] For you also, O Judah, a harvest is appointed, when I restore the fortunes of my people.
[7:1] When I would heal Israel, the iniquity of Ephraim is revealed, and the evil deeds of Samaria; for they deal falsely; the thief breaks in, and the bandits raid outside.
[7:2] But they do not consider that I remember all their evil. Now their deeds surround them; they are before my face.
[7:3] By their evil they make the king glad, and the princes by their treachery.
[7:4] They are all adulterers; they are like a heated oven whose baker ceases to stir the fire, from the kneading of the dough until it is leavened.
[7:5] On the day of our king, the princes became sick with the heat of wine; he stretched out his hand with mockers.
[7:6] For with hearts like an oven they approach their intrigue; all night their anger smolders; in the morning it blazes like a flaming fire.
[7:7] All of them are hot as an oven, and they devour their rulers. All their kings have fallen, and none of them calls upon me.
[7:8] Ephraim mixes himself with the peoples; Ephraim is a cake not turned.
[7:9] Strangers devour his strength, and he knows it not; gray hairs are sprinkled upon him, and he knows it not.
[7:10] The pride of Israel testifies to his face; yet they do not return to the Lord their God, nor seek him, for all this.
[7:11] Ephraim is like a dove, silly and without sense, calling to Egypt, going to Assyria.
[7:12] As they go, I will spread over them my net; I will bring them down like birds of the heavens; I will discipline them according to the report made to their congregation.
[7:13] Woe to them, for they have strayed from me! Destruction to them, for they have rebelled against me! I would redeem them, but they speak lies against me.
[7:14] They do not cry to me from the heart, but they wail upon their beds; for grain and wine they gash themselves; they rebel against me.
[7:15] Although I trained and strengthened their arms, yet they devise evil against me.
[7:16] They return, but not upward; they are like a treacherous bow; their princes shall fall by the sword because of the insolence of their tongue. This shall be their derision in the land of Egypt.