Meet Mitch Maddox

1  when I would heal Israel,
    the iniquity of Ephraim is revealed,
    and the evil deeds of Samaria,
for they deal falsely;
    the thief breaks in,
    and the bandits raid outside.
2  But they do not consider
    that I remember all their evil.
Now their deeds surround them;
    they are before my face.
3  By their evil they make the king glad,
    and the princes by their treachery.
4  They are all adulterers;
    they are like a heated oven
whose baker ceases to stir the fire,
    from the kneading of the dough
    until it is leavened.
5  On the day of our king, the princes
    became sick with the heat of wine;
    he stretched out his hand with mockers.
6  For with hearts like an oven they approach their intrigue;
    all night their anger smolders;
    in the morning it blazes like a flaming fire.
7  All of them are hot as an oven,
    and they devour their rulers.
All their kings have fallen,
    and none of them calls upon me.

8  Ephraim mixes himself with the peoples;
    Ephraim is a cake not turned.
9  Strangers devour his strength,
    and he knows it not;
gray hairs are sprinkled upon him,
    and he knows it not.
10  The pride of Israel testifies to his face; ^{1 7:10 Or in his presence}
    yet they do not return to the LORD their God,
    nor seek him, for all this.

11  Ephraim is like a dove,
    silly and without sense,
    calling to Egypt, going to Assyria.
12  As they go, I will spread over them my net;
    I will bring them down like birds of the heavens;
    I will discipline them according to the report made to their congregation.
13  Woe to them, for they have strayed from me!
    Destruction to them, for they have rebelled against me!
I would redeem them,
    but they speak lies against me.

14  They do not cry to me from the heart,
    but they wail upon their beds;
for grain and wine they gash themselves;
    they rebel against me.
15  Although I trained and strengthened their arms,
    yet they devise evil against me.
16  They return, but not upward; ^{2 7:16 Or to the Most High}
    they are like a treacherous bow;
their princes shall fall by the sword
    because of the insolence of their tongue.
This shall be their derision in the land of Egypt.