`Go, and thou hast called in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, Thus said Jehovah: I have remembered for thee The kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, Thy going after Me in a wilderness, in a land not sown.
Saying to wood, `My father `art' thou!' And to a stone, `Thou hast brought me forth,' For they turned unto me the back and not the face, And in the time of their vexation, They say, `Arise Thou, and save us.'
And I have said, How do I put thee among the sons, And give to thee a desirable land, A beauteous inheritance of the hosts of nations, And I say, My father -- ye do call to Me, And from after Me ye do not turn back.
With weeping they come in, And with supplications I bring them, I cause them to go unto streams of waters, In a right way -- they stumble not in it, For I have been to Israel for a father, And Ephraim -- My first-born `is' he.
And given to her her vineyards from thence, And the valley of Achor for an opening of hope, And she hath responded there as in the days of her youth, And as in the day of her coming up out of the land of Egypt.
A son honoureth a father, and a servant his master. And if I `am' a father, where `is' Mine honour? And if I `am' a master, where `is' My fear? Said Jehovah of Hosts to you, O priests, despising My name! And ye have said: `In what have we despised Thy name?'
And ye have said, `Wherefore?' Because Jehovah hath testified between thee And the wife of thy youth, That thou hast dealt treacherously against her, And she thy companion, and thy covenant-wife.