⁷ So I will be like a lion^(A) to them,
    like a leopard I will lurk by the path.
⁸ Like a bear robbed of her cubs,^(B)
    I will attack them and rip them open;
like a lion^(C) I will devour them—
    a wild animal will tear them apart.^(D)

⁹ “You are destroyed, Israel,
    because you are against me,^(E) against your helper.^(F)
10 Where is your king,^(G) that he may save you?
    Where are your rulers in all your towns,
of whom you said,
    ‘Give me a king and princes’?^(H)
11 So in my anger I gave you a king,^(I)
    and in my wrath I took him away.^(J)
12 The guilt of Ephraim is stored up,
    his sins are kept on record.^(K)
13 Pains as of a woman in childbirth^(L) come to him,
    but he is a child without wisdom;
when the time^(M) arrives,
    he doesn’t have the sense to come out of the womb.^(N)

¹⁴ “I will deliver this people from the power of the grave;^(O)
    I will redeem them from death.^(P)
Where, O death, are your plagues?
    Where, O grave, is your destruction?^(Q)

“I will have no compassion,
¹⁵     even though he thrives^(R) among his brothers.
An east wind^(S) from the Lord will come,
    blowing in from the desert;
his spring will fail
    and his well dry up.^(T)
His storehouse will be plundered^(U)
    of all its treasures.
¹⁶ The people of Samaria^(V) must bear their guilt,^(W)
    because they have rebelled^(X) against their God.
They will fall by the sword;^(Y)
    their little ones will be dashed^(Z) to the ground,
    their pregnant women^(AA) ripped open.”^[a]