Ephraim is a trained heifer that loves to thresh; So I will put a yoke on her beautiful neck. I will set a rider on Ephraim. Judah will plow. Jacob will break his clods.
"I have passed upon her fair neck ..." The New English Bible is more understandable here, rendering the passage thus: "Across whose fair neck I have passed a yoke ..." This teaches that the preferred treatment that Israel (both Ephraim and Judah) had received from God throughout their history was about to be withdrawn.  Instead of having it fat and easy on the threshing-floor, they would both be harnessed to the plow.