1. Do not rejoice and celebrate, Israel, like other nations, for you have deserted your God. You are fond of prostitution gifts and run to every threshing floor where there is wheat.

2. This is why threshing floors and vats will not feed you; new wine will disappoint you.

3. No longer will you remain in Yahweh's land. Ephraim will return to Egypt - in fact to Assyria, where they will eat unclean food.

4. No more will they be able to pour out the wine offering for Yahweh and no longer will they sacrifice to him. They will have only bread for mourners; all who eat it will be defiled. This food will be for themselves and it will not be taken into the house of Yahweh.

5. What shall you do on the feast? You will leave but not for the pilgrimage to Yahweh; rather you will flee because of the invaders.

6. Egypt will gather you and Memphis entomb you. Nettles will take over your treasures of silver and thorns creep over your tents.

7. The time of punishment has come, the day of retribution is here. The Israelites will know it. The prophets will go out of their mind; the seers will become like mad men because your defeat will be as great as your sins have been.

8. Ephraim watches before my God; his prophets try to stop the enemy on every path to protect the house of their gods.

9. Yet they are as corrupted as they were long ago in Gibeah. Yahweh will remember their wickedness and punish their sin.

10. I found Israel like wild grapes in the desert, I saw your fathers like the first fruits on a fig tree. But no sooner had they come to Baal-peor than they gave themselves to the idol; and they became as worthless as their dirty god.

11. The glory of Ephraim will flee away like a bird; it has died stillborn, miscarried, not even conceived.

12. Had they brought out children, I would take them off before they were adults, for woe to them when I abandon them!

13. I have seen that Ephraim will make his sons like a game; he will send his sons to be slaughtered.

14. Give them, Yahweh, what you will; give them wombs that miscarry and breasts that are dry.

15. It is at Gilgal that their wickedness is seen. There I hated them. I will expel them from my House because of their evil conduct. I will love them no longer for all their leaders are rebels.

16. Ephraim is blighted; his root is withered; he will produce no fruit. Even when they are with child, the child will die in the womb.

17. My God will reject them because they did not listen; he will make them wander among the nations.





“Queira o dulcíssimo Jesus conservar-nos na Sua graça e dar-nos a felicidade de sermos admitidos, quando Ele quiser, no eterno convívio…” São Padre Pio de Pietrelcina