Hosea 9

⁵The people of Samaria will fear for the calf of Beth-aven. Indeed, its people will mourn over it with its idolatrous priests—those who rejoiced in its glory—for it has been taken from them into exile.

¹⁷Instead, we will do everything we vowed to do: We will burn incense to the Queen of Heaven and offer drink offerings to her, just as we, our fathers, our kings, and our officials did in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. At that time we had plenty of food and good things, and we saw no disaster.

¹⁶As it is, you boast in your proud intentions. All such boasting is evil.

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.

¹¹though on the day you plant you make them grow, and on that morning you help your seed sprout—yet the harvest will vanish on the day of disease and incurable pain.

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

⁹Therefore I will take back My grain in its time and My new wine in its season; I will take away My wool and linen, which were given to cover her nakedness.

¹³Therefore I am striking you severely, to ruin you because of your sins.

¹⁴You will eat but not be satisfied, and your hunger will remain with you. What you acquire, you will not preserve; and what you save, I will give to the sword.

¹²I will destroy her vines and fig trees, which she thinks are the wages paid by her lovers. So I will make them into a thicket, and the beasts of the field will devour them.

¹⁶from that time, when one came expecting a heap of twenty ephahs of grain, there were but ten. When one came to the winepress to draw out fifty baths, there were but twenty.

⁷The new wine dries up, the vine withers. All the merrymakers now groan.

⁸The joyful tambourines have ceased; the noise of revelers has stopped; the joyful harp is silent.

³Tell it to your children; let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation.

⁴What the devouring locust has left, the swarming locust has eaten; what the swarming locust has left, the young locust has eaten; and what the young locust has left, the destroying locust has eaten.

¹³Then the Lord said, “This is how the Israelites will eat their defiled bread among the nations to which I will banish them.”

¹³Though they offer sacrifices as gifts to Me, and though they eat the meat, the Lord does not accept them. Now He will remember their iniquity and punish their sins: They will return to Egypt.

²³The land must not be sold permanently, because it is Mine, and you are but foreigners and residents with Me.

⁷I brought you into a fertile land to eat its fruit and bounty, but you came and defiled My land and made My inheritance detestable.

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

¹⁵But just as every good thing the Lord your God promised you has come to pass, likewise the Lord will bring upon you the calamity He has threatened, until He has destroyed you from this good land He has given you.

²⁰What use to Me is frankincense from Sheba or sweet cane from a distant land? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable; your sacrifices do not please Me.”

¹³Though they offer sacrifices as gifts to Me, and though they eat the meat, the Lord does not accept them. Now He will remember their iniquity and punish their sins: They will return to Egypt.

¹⁴I have not eaten any of the sacred portion while in mourning, or removed any of it while unclean, or offered any of it for the dead. I have obeyed the Lord my God; I have done everything You commanded me.

¹³So Haggai asked, “If one who is defiled by contact with a corpse touches any of these, does it become defiled?” “Yes, it becomes defiled,” the priests answered.

¹⁴Then Haggai replied, “So it is with this people and this nation before Me, declares the Lord, and so it is with every work of their hands; whatever they offer there is defiled.

⁴For the Israelites must live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar, and without ephod or idol.

¹⁷Groan quietly; do not mourn for the dead. Put on your turban and strap your sandals on your feet; do not cover your lips or eat the bread of mourners.”

³What will you do on the day of reckoning when devastation comes from afar? To whom will you flee for help? Where will you leave your wealth?

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?

¹¹I will put an end to all her exultation: her feasts, New Moons, and Sabbaths—all her appointed feasts.

¹³Put on sackcloth and lament, O priests; wail, O ministers of the altar. Come, spend the night in sackcloth, O ministers of my God, because the grain and drink offerings are withheld from the house of your God.

⁸The high places of Aven will be destroyed—it is the sin of Israel; thorns and thistles will overgrow their altars. Then they will say to the mountains, “Cover us!” and to the hills, “Fall on us!”

⁶I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and thorns and briers will grow up. I will command the clouds that rain shall not fall on it.”

²³And on that day, in every place that had a thousand vines worth a thousand shekels of silver, only briers and thorns will be found.

¹³Though they offer sacrifices as gifts to Me, and though they eat the meat, the Lord does not accept them. Now He will remember their iniquity and punish their sins: They will return to Egypt.

¹⁶They turn, but not to the Most High; they are like a faulty bow. Their leaders will fall by the sword for the cursing of their tongue; for this they will be ridiculed in the land of Egypt.

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

²⁴At this stage of Paul’s defense, Festus exclaimed in a loud voice, “You are insane, Paul! Your great learning is driving you to madness!”

²⁵But Paul answered, “I am not insane, most excellent Festus; I am speaking words of truth and sobriety.

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.

²¹When His family heard about this, they went out to take custody of Him, saying, “He is out of His mind.”

¹¹When Jehu went out to the servants of his master, they asked, “Is everything all right? Why did this madman come to you?” “You know his kind and their babble,” he replied.

³This is what the Lord God says: Woe to the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit yet have seen nothing.

³What will you do on the day of reckoning when devastation comes from afar? To whom will you flee for help? Where will you leave your wealth?

¹“Hear this, O priests! Take heed, O house of Israel! Give ear, O royal house! For this judgment is against you because you have been a snare at Mizpah, a net spread out on Tabor.

²⁴If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have seen and hated both Me and My Father.

¹⁷“Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from My mouth, give them a warning from Me.

⁷As for you, O son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; so hear the word from My mouth and give them the warning from Me.

¹³But this was for the sins of her prophets and the guilt of her priests, who shed the blood of the righteous in her midst.

⁶On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have posted watchmen; they will never be silent day or night. You who call on the Lord shall take no rest for yourselves,

⁹Since the days of Gibeah you have sinned, O Israel, and there you have remained. Did not the battle in Gibeah overtake the sons of iniquity?

¹⁶That evening an old man from the hill country of Ephraim, who was residing in Gibeah (the men of that place were Benjamites), came in from his work in the field.

⁶Return to the One against whom you have so blatantly rebelled, O children of Israel.

¹³Though they offer sacrifices as gifts to Me, and though they eat the meat, the Lord does not accept them. Now He will remember their iniquity and punish their sins: They will return to Egypt.

¹³Your gods are indeed as numerous as your cities, O Judah; the altars of shame you have set up—the altars to burn incense to Baal—are as many as the streets of Jerusalem.’

¹⁴I will not punish your daughters when they prostitute themselves, nor your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery. For the men themselves go off with prostitutes and offer sacrifices with shrine prostitutes. So a people without understanding will come to ruin.

¹While Israel was staying in Shittim, the men began to indulge in sexual immorality with the daughters of Moab,

²who also invited them to the sacrifices for their gods. And the people ate and bowed down to these gods.

⁸But they rebelled against Me and refused to listen. None of them cast away the abominations before their eyes, and they did not forsake the idols of Egypt. So I resolved to pour out My wrath upon them and vent My anger against them in the land of Egypt.

¹⁵There I will give back her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor into a gateway of hope. There she will respond as she did in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt.

²⁸They yoked themselves to Baal of Peor and ate sacrifices offered to lifeless gods.

²⁹So they provoked the Lord to anger with their deeds, and a plague broke out among them.

¹⁴Give them, O Lord—what will You give? Give them wombs that miscarry and breasts that dry up!

⁵²And the second son he named Ephraim, saying, “God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.”

⁷The more they multiplied, the more they sinned against Me; they exchanged their Glory for a thing of disgrace.

¹⁸The fruit of your womb will be cursed, as well as the produce of your land, the calves of your herds, and the lambs of your flocks.

⁵The people of Samaria will fear for the calf of Beth-aven. Indeed, its people will mourn over it with its idolatrous priests—those who rejoiced in its glory—for it has been taken from them into exile.

¹⁸He is driven from light into darkness and is chased from the inhabited world.

¹⁹He has no offspring or posterity among his people, no survivor where he once lived.

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.

¹⁶Ephraim is struck down; their root is withered; they cannot bear fruit. Even if they bear children, I will slay the darlings of their wombs.

¹⁷On that day My anger will burn against them, and I will abandon them and hide My face from them, so that they will be consumed, and many troubles and afflictions will befall them. On that day they will say, ‘Have not these disasters come upon us because our God is no longer with us?’

²⁵Outside, the sword will take their children, and inside, terror will strike the young man and the young woman, the infant and the gray-haired man.

⁷I will scatter them with a winnowing fork at the gates of the land. I will bereave and destroy My people who have not turned from their ways.

¹⁴Though his sons are many, they are destined for the sword; and his offspring will never have enough food.

³Tell Tyre, who dwells at the gateway to the sea, merchant of the peoples on many coasts, that this is what the Lord God says: You have said, O Tyre, ‘I am perfect in beauty.’

¹In the eleventh month of the twelfth year, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

²“Son of man, because Tyre has said of Jerusalem, ‘Aha! The gate to the nations is broken; it has swung open to me; now that she lies in ruins I will be filled,’

¹⁷Therefore this is what the Lord says: ‘Your wife will become a prostitute in the city, and your sons and daughters will fall by the sword. Your land will be divided by a measuring line, and you yourself will die on pagan soil. And Israel will surely go into exile, away from their homeland.’”

¹⁶Ephraim is struck down; their root is withered; they cannot bear fruit. Even if they bear children, I will slay the darlings of their wombs.

¹⁴the roar of battle will rise against your people, so that all your fortresses will be demolished as Shalman devastated Beth-arbel in the day of battle, when mothers were dashed to pieces along with their children.

²¹For death has climbed in through our windows; it has entered our fortresses to cut off the children from the streets, the young men from the town squares.

²⁹Look, the days are coming when people will say, ‘Blessed are the barren women, the wombs that never bore, and breasts that never nursed!’

²³How miserable those days will be for pregnant and nursing mothers! For there will be great distress upon the land and wrath against this people.

²⁶Because of the present crisis, I think it is good for a man to remain as he is.

¹⁷How miserable those days will be for pregnant and nursing mothers!

¹⁰Their bulls breed without fail; their cows bear calves and do not miscarry.

¹³I have seen Ephraim, like Tyre, planted in a meadow. But Ephraim will bring out his children for slaughter.

²³Your rulers are rebels, friends of thieves. They all love bribes and chasing after rewards. They do not defend the fatherless, and the plea of the widow never comes before them.

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!’

¹¹Is there iniquity in Gilead? They will surely come to nothing. Do they sacrifice bulls in Gilgal? Indeed, their altars will be heaps of stones in the furrows of the field.

⁵Do not seek Bethel or go to Gilgal; do not journey to Beersheba, for Gilgal will surely go into exile, and Bethel will come to nothing.

¹⁶Every year he would go on a circuit from Bethel to Gilgal to Mizpah, judging Israel in all these places.

¹⁹On the tenth day of the first month the people went up from the Jordan and camped at Gilgal on the eastern border of Jericho.

²⁰And there at Gilgal Joshua set up the twelve stones they had taken from the Jordan.

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!

²¹Tell the house of Israel that this is what the Lord God says: ‘I am about to desecrate My sanctuary, the pride of your power, the desire of your eyes, and the delight of your soul. And the sons and daughters you left behind will fall by the sword.’

²⁴Therefore, as a tongue of fire consumes the straw, and as dry grass shrivels in the flame, so their roots will decay and their blossoms will blow away like dust; for they have rejected the instruction of the Lord of Hosts and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

¹⁶The roots beneath him dry up, and the branches above him wither away.

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.

²⁴No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they sown, no sooner have their stems taken root in the ground, than He blows on them and they wither, and a whirlwind sweeps them away like stubble.

⁶⁴Then the Lord will scatter you among all the nations, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known.

⁶⁵Among those nations you will find no repose, not even a resting place for the sole of your foot. There the Lord will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and a despairing soul.

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.

¹¹But they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder; they stopped up their ears from hearing.

¹²They made their hearts like flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the Lord of Hosts had sent by His Spirit through the earlier prophets. Therefore great anger came from the Lord of Hosts.

¹⁸If only you had paid attention to My commandments, your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like waves of the sea.

⁷But as for me, I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me.

⁴Do not be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets proclaimed that this is what the Lord of Hosts says: ‘Turn now from your evil ways and deeds.’ But they did not listen or pay attention to Me, declares the Lord.