Hos 4 | EngLXX | STEP | Hear the word of the Lord, you⌃ children of Israel: for the Lord has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, norknowledge of God in the land.

Hosea 4

1 Hear the word of the Lord, you⌃ children of Israel: for the Lordhas a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, norknowledge of God in the land. 2 Cursing, and lying, and murder, and theft, and adultery abound in the land, and they mingleblood with blood. 3 Therefore shall the land mourn, and shall be diminished with all that dwell in it, withthe wild beasts of the field, and the reptiles of the earth, and with the birds of the sky, and the fishof the sea shall fail: 4 that neither any one may plead, nor any one reproveanother; but my people are as a priest spoken against. 5 Therefore they shall fall by day, and the prophet with you shall fall: I have comparedyour mother to night. 6 My people are like as if they had no knowledge: because you have rejected knowledge, Iwill also reject you, that you shall not minister as priest to me: andas you has forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children. 7 According to their multitude, so they sinned against me: I will turn their glory intoshame. 8 They will devour the sins of my people, and will set their hearts on their iniquities. 9 And the priest shall be as the people: and I will avenge on them their ways, and I willrecompense to them their counsels. 10 And they shall eat, and shall not be satisfied: they have gone a-whoring, and shall byno means prosper: because they have left off to take heed to the Lord. 11 The heart of my people has gladly engaged in fornication and wine and strong drink. 12 They asked counsel bymeans of signs, and they reported answer to them by their staves: they have gone astray ina spirit of whoredom, and gone grievously a-whoring from their God. 13 They have sacrificed on the tops of the mountains, and on the hills they have sacrificedunder the oak and poplar, and under the shady tree, because the shade was good: therefore your daughtersshall go a-whoring, and your daughters-in-law shall commit adultery. 14 And I will not visit upon your daughters when they shall commit fornication, nor yourdaughters-in-law when they shall commit adultery: for they themselves mingled themselves with harlots,and sacrificed with polluted ones, and the people that understood not entangled itself with a harlot. 15 But you, O Israel, be not ignorant, and go you⌃ not,men of Juda, to Galgala; and go not up to the house of On, and swear not by the living Lord. 16 For Israel was maddened like a mad heifer: now the Lord will feed them as a lamb in awide place. 17 Ephraim, joined with idols, has laid stumbling blocks in his own way. 18 He has chosen the Chananites: they have grievously gone a-whoring: they have loved dishonorthrough her insolence. 19 You are a blast of wind in her wings, and they shall be ashamed because of their altars.