Hosea 6 - 9

« Hosea 5 | Hosea 6-9 | Hosea 10 »

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.

Israel Reaps the Whirlwind

Put the trumpet to your mouth!

Like an eagle the enemy comes against the house of Yahweh

Because they have trespassed against My covenant

And transgressed against My law.

They cry out to Me,

“My God, we of Israel know You!”

Israel has rejected the good;

The enemy will pursue him.

They have set up kings, but not by Me;

They have appointed princes, but I did not know it.

With their silver and gold they have made idols for themselves,

That they might be cut off.

He has rejected your calf, O Samaria, saying,

“My anger burns against them!”

How long will they be incapable of innocence?

For from Israel is even this!

A craftsman made it, so it is not God;

Surely the calf of Samaria will be smashed to splinters.

For they sow the wind,

And they reap the whirlwind.

The standing grain has no growth;

It makes no flour.

Should it make anything, strangers would swallow it up.

Israel is swallowed up;

They are now among the nations

Like a vessel in which no one delights.

For they have gone up to Assyria

Like a wild donkey all alone;

Ephraim has hired lovers.

Even though they hire allies among the nations,

Now I will gather them up;

And they will begin to diminish

Because of the burden of the king of princes.

Since Ephraim has multiplied altars for sin,

They have become altars of sinning for him.

Though I wrote for him ten thousand precepts of My law,

They are counted as a strange thing.

As for My sacrificial gifts,

They sacrifice the flesh and eat it,

But Yahweh has not accepted them.

Now He will remember their iniquity

And punish them for their sins;

They will return to Egypt.

So Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces;

And Judah has multiplied fortified cities,

But I will send a fire on its cities that it may consume its palatial dwellings.

Days of Punishment Have Come

Do not be glad, O Israel, with rejoicing like the peoples!

For you have played the harlot, forsaking your God.

You have loved harlots’ earnings on every threshing floor.

Threshing floor and wine press will not feed them,

And the new wine will deceive them.

They will not remain in the land of Yahweh,

But Ephraim will return to Egypt,

And in Assyria they will eat unclean food.

They will not pour out drink offerings of wine to Yahweh;

Their sacrifices will not please Him.

Their bread will be like mourners’ bread;

All who eat of it will be defiled,

For their bread will be for themselves alone;

It will not enter the house of Yahweh.

What will you do on the day of the appointed festival

And on the day of the feast of Yahweh?

For behold, they will go because of destruction;

Egypt will gather them up; Memphis will bury them.

Weeds will possess their desirable items of silver;

Thorns will be in their tents.

The days of punishment have come;

The days of recompense have come;

Let Israel know this!

The prophet is an ignorant fool,

The inspired man has madness,

Because of the abundance of your iniquity

And because your hostility has abounded.

Ephraim was a watchman with my God, a prophet;

Yet the snare of a bird catcher is in all his ways,

And there is only hostility in the house of his God.

They have dug deep in corruption

As in the days of Gibeah;

He will remember their iniquity;

He will punish their sins.

Grapes in the Wilderness

I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness;

I saw your fathers as the earliest fruit on the fig tree in its first season.

But they came to Baal‑peor and devoted themselves to shame,

And they became as detestable as that which they loved.

As for Ephraim, their glory will fly away like a bird—

No birth, no pregnancy, and no conception!

Though they bring up their children,

Yet I will bereave them until not a man is left.

Surely, woe to them indeed when I depart from them!

Ephraim, as I have seen,

Is planted in a pasture like Tyre;

But Ephraim will bring out his children for killing.

Give them, O Yahweh—what will You give?

Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.

All their evil is at Gilgal;

Indeed, I came to hate them there!

Because of the evil of their deeds

I will drive them out of My house!

I will love them no more;

All their princes are rebels.

Ephraim is stricken; their root is dried up;

They will bear no fruit.

Even though they bear children,

I will put to death the desirable ones of their womb.

My God will despise them

Because they have not listened to Him;

And they will be those who flee among the nations.

« Hosea 5 | Hosea 6-9 | Hosea 10 »