¹¹ As for Ephraim, their glory will go in flight like a bird: there will be no birth and no one with child and no giving of life.

⁵ The people of Samaria will be full of fear because of the ox of Beth-aven; its people will have sorrow for it, and its priests will give cries of grief for its glory, for the glory has gone in flight.

¹⁴ O Lord, what will you give them? Give them bodies which may not give birth and breasts without milk.

⁷ Even while they were increasing in number they were sinning against me; I will let their glory be changed into shame.

¹⁸ A curse will be on the fruit of your body, and on the fruit of your land, on the increase of your cattle, and the young of your flock.

²⁹ For the days are coming in which they will say, Happy are those who have had no children, whose bodies have never given birth, whose breasts have never given milk.

¹³ These are the words of the Lord: For three crimes of the children of Ammon, and for four, I will not let its fate be changed; because in Gilead they had women with child cut open, so that they might make wider the limits of their land.

³ If a man has a hundred children, and his life is long so that the days of his years are great in number, but his soul takes no pleasure in good, and he is not honoured at his death; I say that a birth before its time is better than he.

⁸ Let them be like an after-birth which is turned to water and comes to an end; like the fruit of a woman who gives birth before her time, let them not see the sun.

¹⁸ He is sent away from the light into the dark; he is forced out of the world.

¹⁹ He has no offspring or family among his people, and in his living-place there is no one of his name.

⁵ For the light of the sinner is put out, and the flame of his fire is not shining.

¹⁷ He is a young ox, glory is his; his horns are the horns of the mountain ox, with which all peoples will be wounded, even to the ends of the earth: they are the ten thousands of Ephraim and the thousands of Manasseh.

⁵⁷ And to her baby newly come to birth, and to the children of her body; for having no other food, she will make a meal of them secretly, because of her bitter need and the cruel grip of your haters on all your towns.

²² Joseph is a young ox, whose steps are turned to the fountain;

¹⁶ The angel who has been my saviour from all evil, send his blessing on these children: and let my name and the name of my fathers, Abraham and Isaac, be given to them; and let them become a great nation in the earth.

¹⁷ Now when Joseph saw that his father had put his right hand on the head of Ephraim, it did not seem right to him; and lifting his father's hand he would have put it on the head of Manasseh.

¹⁸ And Joseph said to his father, Not so, my father, for this is the older; put your right hand on his head.

¹⁹ But his father would not, saying, I am doing it on purpose, my son; he will certainly become a nation and a great one; but his younger brother will be greater than he, and his seed will become a great family of nations.

²⁰ So he gave them his blessing that day, saying, You will be the sign of blessing in Israel, for they will say, May God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh; and he put Ephraim before Manasseh.

⁵² And to the second he gave the name Ephraim, for he said, God has given me fruit in the land of my sorrow.