Hosea 6 - 7

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Israel Chastised

“Come, let us return to Yahweh.

For He has torn us, but He will heal us;

He has struck us, but He will bandage us.

He will make us alive after two days;

He will raise us up on the third day,

That we may live before Him.

So let us know, let us pursue to know Yahweh.

His going forth is established as the dawn;

And He will come to us like the rain,

Like the late rain watering the earth.”

What shall I do with you, O Ephraim?

What shall I do with you, O Judah?

For your lovingkindness is like a morning cloud

And like the dew which goes away early.

Therefore I have hewn them in pieces by the prophets;

I have killed them by the words of My mouth;

And the judgments on you are like the light that goes forth.

For I delight in lovingkindness rather than sacrifice,

And in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

But like Adam they have trespassed against the covenant;

There they have dealt treacherously against Me.

Gilead is a city of workers of iniquity,

With a track of blood.

And as raiders wait for a man,

So a band of priests murder on the way to Shechem;

Surely they have committed lewdness.

In the house of Israel I have seen an appalling thing;

Ephraim’s harlotry is there; Israel has defiled itself.

Also, O Judah, there is a harvest set for you

When I restore the fortunes of My people,

When I would heal Israel,

Then the iniquity of Ephraim is uncovered,

And the evil deeds of Samaria,

For they work falsehood;

The thief enters in;

Raiders ransack outside,

And they do not say to their hearts

That I remember all their evil.

Now their deeds are all around them;

They are before My face.

With their evil they make the king glad,

And the princes with their deceptions.

They are all adulterers,

Like an oven heated by the baker

Who ceases to stir up the fire

From the kneading of the dough until it is leavened.

On the day of our king, the princes became sick with the heat of wine;

He stretched out his hand with scoffers,

For their hearts are like an oven

As they draw near in their plotting;

Their anger smolders all night;

In the morning it burns like a flaming fire.

All of them are hot like an oven,

And they devour their judges;

All their kings have fallen.

None of them calls on Me.

Ephraim mixes himself with the peoples;

Ephraim has become a cake not turned.

Strangers devour his power,

Yet he does not know it;

Gray hairs also are sprinkled on him,

Yet he does not know it.

So the pride of Israel answers against him,

Yet they have not returned to Yahweh their God,

Nor have they sought Him, for all this.

So Ephraim has become like a silly dove, without a heart of wisdom;

They call to Egypt; they go to Assyria.

When they go, I will spread My net over them;

I will bring them down like the birds of the sky.

I will chastise them in accordance with the report to their congregation.

Woe to them, for they have fled from Me!

Destruction is theirs, for they have transgressed against Me!

And I would redeem them, but they speak lies against Me.

And they do not cry out to Me in their heart

When they wail on their beds;

For the sake of grain and new wine they gather together as sojourners;

They depart from Me.

Although I disciplined and strengthened their arms,

Yet they devise evil against Me.

They turn, but not upward;

They are like a deceitful bow;

Their princes will fall by the sword

Because of the indignation of their tongue.

This will be their scoffing in the land of Egypt.

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