1 O ISRAEL, return to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled and fallen, [visited by calamity] due to your iniquity. 2 Take with you words and return to the Lord. Say to Him, Take away all our iniquity; accept what is good and receive us graciously; so will we render [our thanks] as bullocks [to be sacrificed] and pay the confession of our lips. 3 Assyria shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses, neither will we say any more to the work of our hands [idols], You are our gods. For in You [O Lord] the fatherless find love, pity, and mercy.
4 I will heal their faithlessness; I will love them freely, for My anger is turned away from [Israel]. 5 I will be like the dew and the night mist to Israel; he shall grow and blossom like the lily and cast forth his roots like [the sturdy evergreens of] Lebanon. 6 His suckers and shoots shall spread, and his beauty shall be like the olive tree and his fragrance like [the cedars and aromatic shrubs of] Lebanon. 7 They that dwell under his shade shall return; they shall revive like the grain and blossom like the vine; the scent of it shall be like the wine of Lebanon.
8 Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols? I have answered [him] and will regard and watch over him; I am like a green fir or cypress tree; with Me is the fruit found [which is to nourish you].
9 Who is wise, that he may understand these things? Prudent, that he may know them? For the ways of the Lord are right and the [uncompromisingly] just shall walk in them, but transgressors shall stumble and fall in them.