Hosea 7

¹³Woe to them, for they have strayed from Me! Destruction to them, for they have rebelled against Me! Though I would redeem them, they speak lies against Me.

³Both hands are skilled at evil; the prince and the judge demand a bribe. When the powerful utters his evil desire, they all conspire together.

⁴The best of them is like a brier; the most upright is sharper than a hedge of thorns. The day for your watchmen has come, the day of your visitation. Now is the time of their confusion.

⁴What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? For your loyalty is like a morning mist, like the early dew that vanishes.

³⁴O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her, how often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were unwilling!

²If only I had a traveler’s lodge in the wilderness, I would abandon my people and depart from them, for they are all adulterers, a crowd of faithless people.

³“They bend their tongues like bows; lies prevail over truth in the land. For they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not take Me into account,” declares the Lord.

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

²There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, and nothing hidden that will not be made known.

¹⁰This is what the Lord says about this people: “Truly they love to wander; they have not restrained their feet. So the Lord does not accept them; He will now remember their iniquity and punish them for their sins.”

¹⁹Your own evil will discipline you; your own apostasies will reprimand you. Consider and realize how evil and bitter it is for you to forsake the Lord your God and to have no fear of Me,” declares the Lord God of Hosts.

⁷The Lord has sworn by the Pride of Jacob: “I will never forget any of their deeds.

⁸You have set our iniquities before You, our secret sins in the light of Your presence.

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.

³²Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things are worthy of death, they not only continue to do these things, but also approve of those who practice them.

³Both hands are skilled at evil; the prince and the judge demand a bribe. When the powerful utters his evil desire, they all conspire together.

¹In the fifth month of that same year, the fourth year, near the beginning of the reign of King Zedekiah of Judah, the prophet Hananiah son of Azzur, who was from Gibeon, said to me in the house of the Lord in the presence of the priests and all the people:

²“This is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: ‘I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon.

¹⁰Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent word to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, “Amos has conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel. The land cannot bear all his words,

¹¹for this is what Amos has said: ‘Jeroboam will die by the sword, and Israel will surely go into exile, away from their homeland.’”

³¹The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own authority. My people love it so, but what will you do in the end?

¹³Then the messenger who had gone to call Micaiah instructed him, “Behold now, with one accord the words of the prophets are favorable to the king. So please let your words be like theirs, and speak favorably.”

²If only I had a traveler’s lodge in the wilderness, I would abandon my people and depart from them, for they are all adulterers, a crowd of faithless people.

⁴You adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore, whoever chooses to be a friend of the world renders himself an enemy of God.

⁷“Why should I forgive you? Your children have forsaken Me and sworn by gods that are not gods. I satisfied their needs, yet they committed adultery and assembled at the houses of prostitutes.

⁸They are well-fed, lusty stallions, each neighing after his neighbor’s wife.

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

⁶For they prepare their heart like an oven while they lie in wait; all night their anger smolders; in the morning it blazes like a flaming fire.

⁷All of them are hot as an oven, and they devour their rulers. All their kings fall; not one of them calls upon Me.

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.

³For you have spent enough time in the past carrying out the same desires as the Gentiles: living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing, and detestable idolatry.

⁴Because of this, they consider it strange of you not to plunge with them into the same flood of reckless indiscretion, and they heap abuse on you.

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.

¹Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, or set foot on the path of sinners, or sit in the seat of mockers.

¹⁸Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to reckless indiscretion. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.

²³Instead, you have exalted yourself against the Lord of heaven. The vessels from His house were brought to you, and as you drank wine from them with your nobles, wives, and concubines, you praised your gods of silver and gold, bronze and iron, wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or understand. But you have failed to glorify the God who holds in His hand your very breath and all your ways.

²⁰On the third day, which was Pharaoh’s birthday, he held a feast for all his officials, and in their presence he lifted up the heads of the chief cupbearer and the chief baker.

¹Woe to those who devise iniquity and plot evil on their beds! At morning’s light they accomplish it because the power is in their hands.

⁸He lies in wait near the villages; in ambush he slays the innocent; his eyes watch in stealth for the helpless.

⁹He lies in wait like a lion in a thicket; he lurks to seize the oppressed; he catches the lowly in his net.

⁴They are all adulterers, like an oven heated by a baker who needs not stoke the fire from the kneading to the rising of the dough.

⁷All of them are hot as an oven, and they devour their rulers. All their kings fall; not one of them calls upon Me.

¹⁶For they cannot sleep unless they do evil; they are deprived of slumber until they make someone fall.

²⁸Now Absalom had ordered his young men, “Watch Amnon until his heart is merry with wine, and when I order you to strike Amnon down, you are to kill him. Do not be afraid. Have I not commanded you? Be courageous and valiant!”

²⁹So Absalom’s young men did to Amnon just as Absalom had ordered. Then all the other sons of the king got up, and each one fled on his mule.

¹⁰Then Shallum son of Jabesh conspired against Zechariah, struck him down and killed him in front of the people, and reigned in his place.

²⁵Then his officer, Pekah son of Remaliah, conspired against him along with Argob, Arieh, and fifty men of Gilead. And at the citadel of the king’s palace in Samaria, Pekah struck down and killed Pekahiah and reigned in his place.

¹⁴Then Menahem son of Gadi went up from Tirzah to Samaria, struck down and killed Shallum son of Jabesh, and reigned in his place.

³⁰Then Hoshea son of Elah led a conspiracy against Pekah son of Remaliah. In the twentieth year of Jotham son of Uzziah, Hoshea attacked Pekah, killed him, and reigned in his place.

¹³But the people did not return to Him who struck them; they did not seek the Lord of Hosts.

¹³The godless in heart harbor resentment; even when He binds them, they do not cry for help.

³⁵but they mingled with the nations and adopted their customs.

¹²Now, therefore, do not give your daughters in marriage to their sons or take their daughters for your sons. Never seek their peace or prosperity, so that you may be strong and may eat the good things of the land, leaving it as an inheritance to your sons forever.’

²³In those days I also saw Jews who had married women from Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab.

²⁴Half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod or of the other peoples, but could not speak the language of Judah.

¹After these things had been accomplished, the leaders approached me and said, “The people of Israel, including the priests and Levites, have not kept themselves separate from the surrounding peoples whose abominations are like those of the Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Ammonites, Moabites, Egyptians, and Amorites.

¹¹Judah has broken faith; an abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the Lord’s beloved sanctuary by marrying the daughter of a foreign god.

²¹Then Elijah approached all the people and said, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him. But if Baal is God, follow him.” But the people did not answer a word.

⁷For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind. There is no standing grain; what sprouts fails to yield flour. Even if it should produce, the foreigners would swallow it up.

²²But this is a people plundered and looted, all trapped in caves or imprisoned in dungeons. They have become plunder with no one to rescue them, and loot with no one to say, “Send them back!”

²³Who among you will pay attention to this? Who will listen and obey hereafter?

³⁵“They struck me, but I feel no pain! They beat me, but I did not know it! When can I wake up to search for another drink?”

³So the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and He delivered them continually into the hands of Hazael king of Aram and his son Ben-hadad.

⁴Then Jehoahaz sought the favor of the Lord, and the Lord listened to him because He saw the oppression that the king of Aram had inflicted on Israel.

⁷Your land is desolate; your cities are burned with fire. Foreigners devour your fields before you—a desolation demolished by strangers.

²²And Hazael king of Aram oppressed Israel throughout the reign of Jehoahaz.

⁵Israel’s arrogance testifies against them; Israel and Ephraim stumble in their iniquity; even Judah stumbles with them.

¹³But the people did not return to Him who struck them; they did not seek the Lord of Hosts.

⁶“I afflicted all your cities with cleanness of teeth and all your towns with lack of bread, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the Lord.

⁷“I also withheld the rain from you when the harvest was three months away. I sent rain on one city but withheld it from another. One field received rain; another without rain withered.

²God looks down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if any understand, if any seek God.

¹¹There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.

²²Though you grind a fool like grain with mortar and a pestle, yet his folly will not depart from him.

¹³When Ephraim saw his sickness and Judah his wound, then Ephraim turned to Assyria and sent to the great king. But he cannot cure you or heal your wound.

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.

¹¹to promiscuity, wine, and new wine, which take away understanding.

¹¹They will come trembling like birds from Egypt and like doves from the land of Assyria. Then I will settle them in their homes, declares the Lord.

¹⁸Now what will you gain on your way to Egypt to drink the waters of the Nile? What will you gain on your way to Assyria to drink the waters of the Euphrates?

³They will not remain in the land of the Lord; Ephraim will return to Egypt and eat unclean food in Assyria.

¹³But I will spread My net over him, and he will be caught in My snare. I will bring him to Babylon, the land of the Chaldeans; yet he will not see it, and there he will die.

¹⁵If, however, you do not obey the Lord your God by carefully following all His commandments and statutes I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:

¹⁶You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country.

²²Then the generation to come—your sons who follow you and the foreigner who comes from a distant land—will see the plagues of the land and the sicknesses the Lord has inflicted on it.

²³All its soil will be a burning waste of sulfur and salt, unsown and unproductive, with no plant growing on it, just like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in His fierce anger.

³This is what the Lord God says: ‘I will spread My net over you with a company of many peoples, and they will draw you up in My net.

¹²For surely no man knows his time: Like fish caught in a cruel net or birds trapped in a snare, so men are ensnared in an evil time that suddenly falls upon them.

¹⁴If, however, you fail to obey Me and to carry out all these commandments,

¹⁵and if you reject My statutes, despise My ordinances, and neglect to carry out all My commandments, and so break My covenant,

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

¹³Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let in those who wish to enter.

¹⁴

¹²Ephraim surrounds Me with lies, the house of Israel with deceit; but Judah still walks with God and is faithful to the Holy One.

¹⁶The crown has fallen from our head. Woe to us, for we have sinned!

¹When I heal Israel, the iniquity of Ephraim will be exposed, as well as the crimes of Samaria. For they practice deceit and thieves break in; bandits raid in the streets.

¹³rebelling and denying the Lord, turning away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering lies from the heart.

³And when you do ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may squander it on your pleasures.

⁹Men cry out under great oppression; they plead for relief from the arm of the mighty.

¹⁰But no one asks, ‘Where is God my Maker, who gives us songs in the night,

¹⁰Yet in spite of all this, her unfaithful sister Judah did not return to Me with all her heart, but only in pretense,” declares the Lord.

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

³⁵And they remembered that God was their Rock, that God Most High was their Redeemer.

⁵“Ask all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for these seventy years, was it really for Me that you fasted?

¹¹If a man of wind were to come and say falsely, “I will preach to you of wine and strong drink,” he would be just the preacher for this people!

⁹Whatever you plot against the Lord, He will bring to an end. Affliction will not rise up a second time.

¹²Blessed is the man You discipline, O Lord, and teach from Your law,

²³But the Lord was gracious to Israel and had compassion on them, and He turned toward them because of His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And to this day, the Lord has been unwilling to destroy them or cast them from His presence.

³How long will you threaten a man? Will all of you throw him down like a leaning wall or a tottering fence?

¹⁷Blessed indeed is the man whom God corrects; so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty.

⁵And you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons: “My son, do not take lightly the discipline of the Lord, and do not lose heart when He rebukes you.

⁵⁷They turned back and were faithless like their fathers, twisted like a faulty bow.

³They will not remain in the land of the Lord; Ephraim will return to Egypt and eat unclean food in Assyria.

⁹They set their mouths against the heavens, and their tongues strut across the earth.

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.

³⁶But I tell you that men will give an account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken.

⁶For even if they flee destruction, Egypt will gather them and Memphis will bury them. Their precious silver will be taken over by thistles, and thorns will overrun their tents.