CHAPTER 12
1 Ephraim feedeth on the wind, and followeth heat. All day he multiplieth leasing, and destroying; and he made bond of peace with Assyrians, and bare oil into Egypt.
2 Therefore the doom of the Lord is with Judah, and visiting is on Jacob; by the ways of him, and by the findings of him, he shall yield to him.
3 In the womb he supplanted his brother, and in his strength he wrestled with the angel.
4 And he was strong to the angel, and was comforted, [or And he had victory at the angel, and he was comforted]; he wept, and prayed to him; in Bethel he found him, and there he spake with us.
5 And the Lord God of hosts, the Lord, is the memorial of him.
6 And thou shalt turn to thy God. Keep thou mercy and doom, and hope thou ever[more] in thy God.
7 Canaan loved false challenge, a guileful balance in his hand.
8 And Ephraim said, Nevertheless I am made rich, I have found an idol to me; all my travails shall not find to me the wickedness, which I sinned.
9 And I am thy Lord God from the land of Egypt; yet I shall make thee to sit in tabernacles, as in the days of feast.
10 And I spake by prophets, and I multiplied vision, either prophesy, and I was likened in the hand of prophets.
11 If Gilead worshippeth an idol, therefore they err in vain offering to oxes in Gilgal; for why and the altars of them shall be as heaps on the furrows of the field.
12 Jacob fled into the country of Syria, and Israel served for a wife, and served, either kept sheep for a wife.
13 But by a prophet the Lord led Israel out of Egypt, and by a prophet he was kept.
14 Ephraim stirred me to wrathfulness in his bitternesses, and the blood of him shall come on him; and his Lord shall restore to him the shame of him.