Hosea 5

⁸The prophet is Ephraim’s watchman, along with my God, yet the snare of the fowler lies on all his paths. Hostility is in the house of his God!

²The godly man has perished from the earth; there is no one upright among men. They all lie in wait for blood; they hunt one another with a net.

¹⁵The foe pulls all of them up with a hook; he catches them in his dragnet, and gathers them in his fishing net; so he rejoices gladly.

¹⁶Therefore he sacrifices to his dragnet and burns incense to his fishing net, for by these things his portion is sumptuous and his food is rich.

⁹Like raiders who lie in ambush, so does a band of priests; they murder on the way to Shechem; surely they have committed atrocities.

⁹Now hear this, O leaders of the house of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel, who despise justice and pervert all that is right,

¹¹Ephraim’s glory will fly away like a bird, with no birth, no pregnancy, and no conception.

¹²Even if they raise their children, I will bereave them of each one. Yes, woe be to them when I turn away from them!

¹⁵All their evil appears at Gilgal, for there I hated them. I will drive them from My house for the wickedness of their deeds. I will no longer love them; all their leaders are rebellious.

¹⁵Woe to those who dig deep to hide their plans from the Lord. In darkness they do their works and say, “Who sees us, and who will know?”

⁹Like raiders who lie in ambush, so does a band of priests; they murder on the way to Shechem; surely they have committed atrocities.

⁵Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of My mouth, and My judgments go forth like lightning.

²Cursing and lying, murder and stealing, and adultery are rampant; one act of bloodshed follows another.

⁵Why do you want more beatings? Why do you keep rebelling? Your head has a massive wound, and your whole heart is afflicted.

²“Only you have I known from all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.”

¹³Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight; everything is uncovered and exposed before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.

¹¹Though Ephraim multiplied the altars for sin, they became his altars for sinning.

²⁶Jeroboam said in his heart, “Now the kingdom might revert to the house of David.

²⁷If these people go up to offer sacrifices in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, their hearts will return to their lord, Rehoboam king of Judah; then they will kill me and return to Rehoboam king of Judah.”

¹⁷The Lord will bring on you and on your people and on the house of your father a time unlike any since the day Ephraim separated from Judah—He will bring the king of Assyria.”

¹Ephraim feeds on the wind and pursues the east wind all day long; he multiplies lies and violence; he makes a covenant with Assyria and sends olive oil to Egypt.

¹²My people consult their wooden idols, and their divining rods inform them. For a spirit of prostitution leads them astray and they have played the harlot against their God.

³By this we can be sure that we have come to know Him: if we keep His commandments.

⁴If anyone says, “I know Him,” but does not keep His commandments, he is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

¹⁵Does it make you a king to excel in cedar? Did not your father have food and drink? He administered justice and righteousness, and so it went well with him.

¹⁶He took up the cause of the poor and needy, and so it went well with him. Is this not what it means to know Me?” declares the Lord.

⁷I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the Lord. They will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with all their heart.

¹¹For this reason God will send them a powerful delusion so that they believe the lie,

¹²in order that judgment may come upon all who have disbelieved the truth and delighted in wickedness.

⁵⁵You do not know Him, but I know Him. If I said I did not know Him, I would be a liar like you. But I do know Him, and I keep His word.

¹⁰Israel’s arrogance testifies against them, yet they do not return to the Lord their God; despite all this, they do not seek Him.

²²His master replied, ‘You wicked servant, I will judge you by your own words. So you knew that I am a harsh man, withdrawing what I did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow?

²“Fallen is Virgin Israel, never to rise again. She lies abandoned on her land, with no one to raise her up.”

¹⁶For though a righteous man may fall seven times, he still gets up; but the wicked stumble in bad times.

³¹Because you have followed the path of your sister, I will put her cup into your hand.’

³²This is what the Lord God says: ‘You will drink your sister’s cup, a cup deep and wide. It will bring scorn and derision, for it holds so much.

³¹So you testify against yourselves that you are the sons of those who murdered the prophets.

²⁸Then they will call on me, but I will not answer; they will earnestly seek me, but will not find me.

³⁴You will look for Me, but you will not find Me; and where I am, you cannot come.”

⁶With what shall I come before the Lord when I bow before the God on high? Should I come to Him with burnt offerings, with year-old calves?

⁷Would the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I present my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

⁴⁴You have covered Yourself with a cloud that no prayer can pass through.

⁸The sacrifice of the wicked is detestable to the Lord, but the prayer of the upright is His delight.

⁴Do not trust in deceptive words, saying: ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’

⁷But they, like Adam, have transgressed the covenant; there they were unfaithful to Me.

²⁸Therefore tell them that this is what the Lord God says: ‘None of My words will be delayed any longer. The message I speak will be fulfilled, declares the Lord God.’”

⁴I will have no compassion on her children, because they are the children of adultery.

¹¹Set me free and rescue me from the grasp of foreigners, whose mouths speak falsehood, whose right hands are deceitful.

⁷Reach down from on high; set me free and rescue me from the deep waters, from the grasp of foreigners,

⁸You have never heard; you have never understood; for a long time your ears have not been open. For I knew how deceitful you are; you have been called a rebel from birth.

¹⁵Though you prostitute yourself, O Israel, may Judah avoid such guilt! Do not journey to Gilgal, do not go up to Beth-aven, and do not swear on oath, ‘As surely as the Lord lives!’

⁹They have deeply corrupted themselves as in the days of Gibeah; He will remember their guilt; He will punish their sins.

¹Blow the ram’s horn in Zion; sound the alarm on My holy mountain! Let all who dwell in the land tremble, for the Day of the Lord is coming; indeed, it is near—

³⁴Then Samuel went to Ramah, but Saul went up to his home in Gibeah of Saul.

⁵Announce in Judah, proclaim in Jerusalem, and say: “Blow the ram’s horn throughout the land. Cry aloud and say, ‘Assemble yourselves and let us flee to the fortified cities.’

¹Put the ram’s horn to your lips! An eagle looms over the house of the Lord, because the people have transgressed My covenant and rebelled against My law.

¹⁰I declare the end from the beginning, and from ancient times what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and all My good pleasure I will accomplish.’

⁶But did not My words and My statutes, which I commanded My servants the prophets, overtake your fathers? They repented and said, ‘Just as the Lord of Hosts purposed to do to us according to our ways and deeds, so He has done to us.’”

¹¹Ephraim’s glory will fly away like a bird, with no birth, no pregnancy, and no conception.

¹²Even if they raise their children, I will bereave them of each one. Yes, woe be to them when I turn away from them!

¹Woe to the majestic crown of Ephraim’s drunkards, to the fading flower of his glorious splendor, set on the summit above the fertile valley, the pride of those overcome by wine.

²Behold, the Lord has one who is strong and mighty. Like a hailstorm or destructive tempest, like a driving rain or flooding downpour, he will smash that crown to the ground.

⁴But I have told you these things so that when their hour comes, you will remember that I told you about them. I did not tell you these things from the beginning, because I was with you.

¹When Ephraim spoke, there was trembling; he was exalted in Israel. But he incurred guilt through Baal, and he died.

²Now they sin more and more and make for themselves cast images, idols skillfully made from their silver, all of them the work of craftsmen. People say of them, “They offer human sacrifice and kiss the calves!”

¹⁴You must not move your neighbor’s boundary marker, which was set up by your ancestors to mark the inheritance you shall receive in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess.

⁶Therefore let all the godly pray to You while You may be found. Surely when great waters rise, they will not come near.

³The floodwaters have risen, O Lord; the rivers have raised their voice; the seas lift up their pounding waves.

⁴Above the roar of many waters—the mighty breakers of the sea—the Lord on high is majestic.

¹⁷‘Cursed is he who moves his neighbor’s boundary stone.’ And let all the people say, ‘Amen!’

¹⁷All day long they engulf me like water; they enclose me on every side.

⁴⁹But the one who hears My words and does not act on them is like a man who built his house on ground without a foundation. The torrent crashed against that house, and immediately it fell—and great was its destruction!”

¹⁶You have kept the statutes of Omri and all the practices of Ahab’s house; you have followed their counsel. Therefore I will make you a desolation, and your inhabitants an object of contempt; you will bear the scorn of the nations.”

³³A people you do not know will eat the produce of your land and of all your toil. All your days you will be oppressed and crushed.

²⁶Jeroboam said in his heart, “Now the kingdom might revert to the house of David.

²⁷If these people go up to offer sacrifices in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, their hearts will return to their lord, Rehoboam king of Judah; then they will kill me and return to Rehoboam king of Judah.”

²⁹In the days of Pekah king of Israel, Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria came and captured Ijon, Abel-beth-maacah, Janoah, Kedesh, Hazor, Gilead, and Galilee, including all the land of Naphtali, and he took the people as captives to Assyria.

¹¹Therefore, because you trample on the poor and exact from him a tax of grain, you will never live in the stone houses you have built; you will never drink the wine from the lush vineyards you have planted.

¹²For I know that your transgressions are many and your sins are numerous. You oppress the righteous by taking bribes; you deprive the poor of justice in the gate.

¹⁶At that time Menahem, starting from Tirzah, attacked Tiphsah and everyone in its vicinity, because they would not open their gates. So he attacked Tiphsah and ripped open all the pregnant women.

¹⁷In the thirty-ninth year of Azariah’s reign over Judah, Menahem son of Gadi became king of Israel, and he reigned in Samaria ten years.

⁸For the moth will devour them like a garment, and the worm will eat them like wool. But My righteousness will last forever, My salvation through all generations.”

⁷When dawn came the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant so that it withered.

²⁸So man wastes away like something rotten, like a moth-eaten garment.

⁹Surely the Lord God helps Me. Who is there to condemn Me? See, they will all wear out like a garment; the moths will devour them.

⁴A wife of noble character is her husband’s crown, but she who causes shame is like decay in his bones.

⁴³If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two hands and go into hell, into the unquenchable fire.

⁴⁴

¹¹So Ephraim has become like a silly, senseless dove—calling out to Egypt, then turning to Assyria.

¹²For this is what the Lord says: “Your injury is incurable; your wound is grievous.

¹⁹Then Pul king of Assyria invaded the land, and Menahem gave Pul a thousand talents of silver in order to gain his support and strengthen his own grip on the kingdom.

¹Ephraim feeds on the wind and pursues the east wind all day long; he multiplies lies and violence; he makes a covenant with Assyria and sends olive oil to Egypt.

⁶Yes, it will be carried to Assyria as tribute to the great king. Ephraim will be seized with shame; Israel will be ashamed of its wooden idols.

⁹For they have gone up to Assyria like a wild donkey on its own. Ephraim has hired lovers.

⁸Then the remnant of Jacob will be among the nations, in the midst of many peoples, like a lion among the beasts of the forest, like a young lion among flocks of sheep, which tramples and tears as it passes through, with no one to rescue them.

²or they will shred my soul like a lion and tear me to pieces with no one to rescue me.

²²Now consider this, you who forget God, lest I tear you to pieces, with no one to rescue you:

⁷So like a lion I will pounce on them; like a leopard I will lurk by the path.

⁸Like a bear robbed of her cubs I will attack them, and I will tear open their chests. There I will devour them like a lion, like a wild beast tearing them apart.

¹⁴Escape will fail the swift, the strong will not prevail by his strength, and the mighty will not save his life.

²⁹Their roaring is like that of a lion; they roar like young lions. They growl and seize their prey; they carry it away, and no one can rescue it.

¹⁶O Lord, they sought You in their distress; when You disciplined them, they poured out a quiet prayer.

¹²Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.

¹³You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.

²⁹But if from there you will seek the Lord your God, you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul.

³⁰When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, then in later days you will return to the Lord your God and listen to His voice.

³⁴When He slew them, they would seek Him; they repented and searched for God.

¹⁵Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor Me.”

⁴⁰But if they will confess their iniquity and that of their fathers in the unfaithfulness that they practiced against Me, by which they have also walked in hostility toward Me—

⁴¹and I acted with hostility toward them and brought them into the land of their enemies—and if their uncircumcised hearts will be humbled and they will make amends for their iniquity,