Hosea 7

Punishment Coming for Israel and Judah

vHear this, O priests!

Pay attention, O house of Israel!

Give ear, O house of the king!

For the judgment is for you;

for wyou have been a snare at Mizpah

and a net spread upon xTabor.

And ythe revolters zhave gone deep into slaughter,

but aI will discipline all of them.

bI know Ephraim,

and Israel is not hidden from me;

for now, O Ephraim, you have played the whore;

Israel is defiled.

cTheir deeds do not permit them

to return to their God.

For dthe spirit of whoredom is within them,

and they know not the Lord.

eThe pride of Israel testifies to his face;1

Israel and fEphraim shall stumble in his guilt;

fJudah also shall stumble with them.

gWith their flocks and herds they shall go

to seek the Lord,

gbut they will not find him;

hhe has withdrawn from them.

iThey have dealt faithlessly with the Lord;

for they have borne alien children.

Now the new moon shall devour them with their fields.

jBlow the horn in kGibeah,

the trumpet in lRamah.

Sound the alarm at mBeth-aven;

we follow you,2 O Benjamin!

Ephraim shall become a desolation

in the day of punishment;

among the tribes of Israel

I make known what is sure.

10  The princes of Judah have become

like nthose who move the landmark;

upon them I will pour out

my wrath like water.

11  Ephraim is ooppressed, crushed in judgment,

because he was determined to go after filth.3

12  But I am plike a moth to Ephraim,

and plike dry rot to the house of Judah.

13  When Ephraim saw his sickness,

and Judah qhis wound,

then Ephraim went rto Assyria,

and sent to the great king.4

sBut he is not able to cure you

or heal qyour wound.

14  For I will be tlike a lion to uEphraim,

and like a young lion to the house of uJudah.

vI, even I, will tear and go away;

I will carry off, and no one shall rescue.

15  wI will return again to my place,

until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face,

and xin their distress earnestly seek me.

Israel and Judah Are Unrepentant

Come, let us yreturn to the Lord;

for zhe has torn us, that he may heal us;

he has struck us down, and ahe will bind us up.

After two days bhe will revive us;

on the third day he will raise us up,

that we may live before him.

cLet us know; clet us press on to know the Lord;

dhis going out is sure as the dawn;

he will come to us eas the showers,

fas the spring rains that water the earth.

What shall I do with you, gO hEphraim?

What shall I do with you, O hJudah?

Your love is ilike a morning cloud,

ilike the dew that goes early away.

Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets;

I have slain them jby the words of my mouth,

and my judgment goes forth as the light.

For kI desire steadfast love1 and not sacrifice,

lthe knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

But mlike Adam they ntransgressed the covenant;

othere they dealt faithlessly with me.

pGilead is a city of evildoers,

qtracked with blood.

As robbers rlie in wait for a man,

so the priests band together;

they murder on the way to sShechem;

they commit villainy.

10  In the house of Israel I have seen a horrible thing;

tEphraim’s whoredom is there; uIsrael is defiled.

11  For you also, O uJudah, va harvest is appointed.

When wI restore the fortunes of my people,

xwhen I would heal Israel,

the iniquity of Ephraim is revealed,

and the evil deeds of ySamaria,

for zthey deal falsely;

the thief breaks in,

and the bandits raid outside.

But they do not consider

that aI remember all their evil.

Now btheir deeds surround them;

cthey are before my face.

By their evil dthey make dthe king glad,

and the princes by their treachery.

eThey 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.

On the day of four king, the princes

became sick with the heat of wine;

he stretched out his hand with mockers.

For with hearts like an oven gthey approach their intrigue;

all night their anger smolders;

in the morning it blazes like a flaming fire.

All of them are hot as an oven,

and they devour their rulers.

All htheir kings ihave fallen,

and none of them calls upon me.

Ephraim jmixes himself with the peoples;

Ephraim is a cake not turned.

kStrangers devour his strength,

and lhe knows it not;

gray hairs are sprinkled upon him,

and lhe knows it not.

10  mThe pride of Israel testifies to his face;1

nyet they do not return to the Lord their God,

nor seek him, for all this.

11  Ephraim is like a dove,

osilly and without sense,

calling to pEgypt, going to qAssyria.

12  As they go, rI will spread over them my net;

I will bring them down like birds of the heavens;

sI will discipline them taccording to the report made to their congregation.

13  uWoe to them, for they have strayed from me!

Destruction to them, for they have rebelled against me!

vI would redeem them,

but wthey speak lies against me.

14  xThey do not cry to me from the heart,

but ythey wail upon their beds;

for grain and wine they gash themselves;

they rebel against me.

15  Although zI trained and strengthened their arms,

yet they devise evil against me.

16  They areturn, but not upward;2

they are blike a treacherous bow;

their princes shall fall by the sword

because of cthe insolence of their tongue.

This shall be their derision din the land of Egypt.

Israel Will Reap the Whirlwind

Set ethe trumpet to your lips!

One flike a vulture is over the house of the Lord,

because gthey have transgressed my covenant

and rebelled against my law.

To me they cry,

hMy God, weIsraelknow you.

Israel has spurned the good;

the enemy shall pursue him.

iThey made kings, jbut not through me.

They set up princes, but I knew it not.

With their silver and gold they made idols

for their own destruction.

kI have1 spurned your calf, O Samaria.

My anger burns against them.

lHow long will they be incapable of innocence?

For it is from Israel;

a craftsman made it;

it is not God.

kThe calf of Samaria

mshall be broken to pieces.2

For nthey sow the wind,

and they shall reap the whirlwind.

The standing grain has no heads;

it shall yield no flour;

if it were to yield,

ostrangers would devour it.

pIsrael is swallowed up;

already they are among the nations

as qa useless vessel.

For rthey have gone up to Assyria,

sa wild donkey wandering alone;

Ephraim has hired lovers.

10  Though they hire allies among the nations,

I will soon gather them up.

And tthe king and princes ushall soon writhe

because of the tribute.

11  Because Ephraim vhas multiplied altars for sinning,

they have become to him altars for sinning.

12  wWere I to write for him my laws by the ten thousands,

they would be regarded as a strange thing.

13  As for my sacrificial offerings,

xthey sacrifice meat and eat it,

but the Lord does not accept them.

yNow he will remember their iniquity

and punish their sins;

zthey shall return to Egypt.

14  For aIsrael has forgotten bhis Maker

and cbuilt palaces,

and aJudah has multiplied fortified cities;

so dI will send a fire upon his cities,

and it shall devour her strongholds.

The Lord Will Punish Israel

Rejoice not, O Israel!

Exult not like the peoples;

efor you have played the whore, forsaking your God.

fYou have loved a prostitute’s wages

on all threshing floors.

gThreshing floor and wine vat shall not feed them,

and gthe new wine shall fail them.

They shall not remain in hthe land of the Lord,

but iEphraim shall return to Egypt,

and jthey shall eat unclean food in Assyria.

kThey shall not pour drink offerings of wine to the Lord,

land their sacrifices shall not please him.

It shall be like mmourners’ bread to them;

all who eat of it shall be defiled;

for their bread shall be for their hunger only;

nit shall not come to the house of the Lord.

oWhat will you do on the day of the appointed festival,

and on the day of the feast of the Lord?

For behold, they are going away from destruction;

but pEgypt shall gather them;

Memphis shall bury them.

Nettles shall possess qtheir precious things of silver;

rthorns shall be in their tents.

sThe days of punishment have come;

the days of recompense have come;

Israel shall know it.

tThe prophet is a fool;

the man of the spirit is mad,

because of your great iniquity

and great hatred.

The prophet is uthe watchman of Ephraim with my God;

yet va fowler’s snare is on all his ways,

and hatred in the house of his God.

wThey have deeply corrupted themselves

as xin the days of Gibeah:

whe will remember their iniquity;

he will punish their sins.

10  Like grapes in the wilderness,

yI found Israel.

Like the first fruit on the fig tree

in its first season,

I saw your fathers.

But zthey came to Baal-peor

and aconsecrated themselves to the thing of shame,

and bbecame detestable like the thing they loved.

11  Ephraim’s cglory shall fly away like a bird

dno birth, no pregnancy, no conception!

12  eEven if they bring up children,

I will bereave them till none is left.

fWoe to them

when gI depart from them!

13  Ephraim, has I have seen, was like a young palm1 planted in a meadow;

but eEphraim must lead his children out to slaughter.2

14  Give them, O Lord

what will you give?

Give them ia miscarrying womb

and dry breasts.

15  Every evil of theirs is in jGilgal;

there I began to hate them.

Because of the wickedness of their deeds

I will drive them out of my house.

I will love them no more;

all ktheir princes are lrebels.

16  Ephraim is stricken;

mtheir root is dried up;

they shall bear no fruit.

Even nthough they give birth,

eI will put their beloved children to death.

17  oMy God will reject them

because they have not listened to him;

pthey shall be wanderers among the nations.