I have surely heard Ephraim pleading: “You have chastised me, and I was chastised, as an untrained calf; turn me back and I will be turned, for you are the Lord my God.
Your sons have fainted; they lie at the head of all the streets as an antelope in a net; they are full of the fury of the Lord, the rebuke of your God.
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; he was brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.
For You are our Father, though Abraham is ignorant of us and Israel does not recognize us. You, O Lord, are our Father, our Redeemer; Your name is from everlasting.
We lie down in our shame, and our humiliation covers us. For we have sinned against the Lord our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even to this day, and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God.”
They will come with weeping, and with supplications I will lead them. I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters, in a straight way in which they shall not stumble. For I am a Father to Israel, and Ephraim is My firstborn.
O Lord, are not Your eyes upon the truth? You have stricken them, but they have not grieved. You have consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction. They have made their faces harder than a rock; they have refused to return.
There you shall remember your ways and all your deeds in which you have been defiled. And you shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for all your evils that you have committed.
As it is written in the Law of Moses, great calamity has come on us. Yet we have not sought the favor of the Lord our God so that we might turn from our iniquities and give attention to Your truth.
Ephraim is a trained heifer that loves to thresh grain, but I harnessed her fair neck; I will make Ephraim pull a plow. Judah will plow; Jacob shall furrow for himself.
When God saw their actions, that they turned from their evil ways, He changed His mind about the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it.
Then those who feared the Lord spoke to one another. The Lord listened and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear the Lord and who esteem His name.
He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.
On the west side will be the standard of the camp of Ephraim according to their armies, and the captain of the sons of Ephraim will be Elishama the son of Ammihud.
And he will go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”
So he arose and came to his father. “But while he was yet far away, his father saw him and was moved with compassion, and ran and embraced his neck and kissed him.
And you have forgotten the exhortation addressed to you as sons: “My son, do not despise the discipline from the Lord, nor grow weary when you are rebuked by Him;