¶And Ephraim is a trained heifer that loves to thresh, But I will come over her fair neck with a yoke; I will harness Ephraim; Judah will plow; Jacob will harrow for himself.
For thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, “I have put a yoke of iron on the neck of all these nations, that they may serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and they will serve him. And I have even given him the beasts of the field.” ’ ”
¶“Because you are glad, because you exult, O you who plunder My inheritance, Because you skip about like a threshing heifer And neigh like valiant steeds,
“For their mother has played the harlot; She who conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, Who give me my bread and my water, My wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’
Then Yahweh said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by her companion and is an adulteress, even as Yahweh loves the sons of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love raisin cakes.”
Do not be glad, O Israel, with rejoicing like the peoples! For you have played the harlot, forsaking your God. You have loved harlots’ earnings on every threshing floor.
“Arise and thresh, daughter of Zion, For your horn I will make iron, And your hoofs I will make bronze, That you may pulverize many peoples, That you may devote to Yahweh their greedy gain unto destruction And their wealth to the Lord of all the earth.
For such men are slaves, not of our Lord Christ but of their own stomach, and by their smooth and flattering speech they deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting.