Haftarah for Va-yishlah for Sepharadim

Hosea 11.7-12.12

This translation was taken from the JPS Tanakh

7 For My people persists
In its defection from Me;
When it is summoned upward,
It does not rise at all.

8 How can I give you up, O Ephraim?
How surrender you, O Israel?
How can I make you like Admah,
Render you like Zeboiim?
I have had a change of heart,
All My tenderness is stirred.
9 I will not act on My wrath,
Will not turn to destroy Ephraim.
For I am God, not man,
The Holy One in your midst:
I will not come in fury.

10 The Lord will roar like a lion,
And they shall march behind Him;
When He roars, His children shall come
Fluttering out of the west.
11 They shall flutter from Egypt like sparrows,
From the land of Assyria like doves;
And I will settle them in their homes
                      --declares the Lord.

Chapter 12
1 Ephraim surrounds Me with deceit,
The House of Israel with guile.
(But Judah stands firm with God
And is faithful to the Holy One.)
2 Ephraim tends the wind
And pursues the gale;
He is forever adding
Illusion to calamity.
Now they make a covenant with Assyria,
Now oil is carried to Egypt.

3 The Lord once indicted Judah,
And punished Jacob for his conduct,
Requited him for his deeds.
4 In the womb he tried to supplant his brother;
Grown to manhood, he strove with a divine being,
5 He strove with an angel and prevailed--
The other had to weep and implore him.
At Bethel [Jacob] would meet him,
There to commune with him.
6 Yet the Lord, the God of Hosts,
Must be invoked as "Lord."
7 You must return to your God!
Practice goodness and justice,
And constantly trust in your God.

8 A trader who uses false balances,
Who loves to overreach,
9 Ephraim thinks,
"Ah, I have become rich;
I have gotten power!
All my gains do not amount
To an offense which is real guilt."
10 I the Lord have been your God
Ever since the land of Egypt.
I will let you dwell in your tents again
As in the days of old,
11 When I spoke to the prophets;
For I granted many visions,
And spoke parables through the prophets.
12 As for Gilead, it is worthless;
And to no purpose have they
Been sacrificing oxen in Gilgal:
The altars of these are also
Like stone heaps upon a plowed field.