Although Ephraim has built many altars for sin offerings, these have become altars for sinning!

I ¹  have not even permitted my mouth ²  to sin by asking ³  for his life through a curse –

Yet they continued to sin against him, and rebelled against the sovereign One ¹  in the desert.

Then he ¹  is to take two birds, a piece of cedar wood, a scrap of crimson fabric, and some twigs of hyssop ²  to decontaminate ³  the house,

When Pharaoh saw ¹  that the rain and hail and thunder ceased, he sinned again: ²  both he and his servants hardened ³  their hearts.

or has found something lost and denies it and swears falsely ¹  concerning any one of the things that someone might do to sin ²  –

Even now they persist in sin! ¹  They make metal images for themselves, idols that they skillfully fashion ²  from their own silver; all of them are nothing but the work of craftsmen! There is a saying about them: ³  “Those who sacrifice ⁴  to the calf idol are calf kissers!” ⁵