13:1 When Ephraim spoke, people trembled; he was exalted in Israel. But he became guilty of Baal worship and died.
13:2 Now they sin more and more; they make idols for themselves from their silver, cleverly fashioned images, all of them the work of craftsmen. It is said of these people, “They offer human sacrifices! They kiss* calf-idols!” / *Or “Men who sacrifice kiss
13:3 Therefore they will be like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears, like chaff swirling from a threshing floor, like smoke escaping through a window.
13:4 “But I have been the Lord your God ever since you came out of Egypt. You shall acknowledge no God but me, no Savior except me.
13:5 I cared for you in the wilderness, in the land of burning heat.
13:6 When I fed them, they were satisfied; when they were satisfied, they became proud; then they forgot me.
13:7 So I will be like a lion to them, like a leopard I will lurk by the path.
13:8 Like a bear robbed of her cubs, I will attack them and rip them open; like a lion I will devour them - a wild animal will tear them apart.
13:9 “You are destroyed, Israel, because you are against me, against your helper.
13:10 Where is your king, that he may save you? Where are your rulers in all your towns, of whom you said, ‘Give me a king and princes’?
13:11 So in my anger I gave you a king, and in my wrath I took him away.
13:12 The guilt of Ephraim is stored up, his sins are kept on record.
13:13 Pains as of a woman in childbirth come to him, but he is a child without wisdom; when the time arrives, he doesn’t have the sense to come out of the womb.
13:14 “I will deliver this people from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death. Where, O death, are your plagues? Where, O grave, is your destruction? “I will have no compassion,
13:15 even though he thrives among his brothers. An east wind from the Lord will come, blowing in from the desert; his spring will fail and his well dry up. His storehouse will be plundered of all its treasures.
13:16 The people of Samaria must bear their guilt, because they have rebelled against their God. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to the ground, their pregnant women ripped open.”* / *In Hebrew texts this verse (13:16) is numbered 14:1.