Hosea 5

Punishment Coming for Israel and Judah

1 ^aHear this, O priests!
Pay attention, O house of Israel!
Give ear, O house of the king!
For the judgment is for you;
for ^byou have been a snare at Mizpah
and a net spread upon ^cTabor.
2And ^dthe revolters ^ehave gone deep into slaughter,
but ^fI will discipline all of them.
3 ^gI know Ephraim,
and Israel is not hidden from me;
for now, O Ephraim, you have played the whore;
Israel is defiled.
4 ^hTheir deeds do not permit them
to return to their God.
For ⁱthe spirit of whoredom is within them,
and they know not the Lord.
5 ^jThe pride of Israel testifies to his face; ▼

▼Or in his presence

Israel and ^lEphraim shall stumble in his guilt;
^mJudah also shall stumble with them.
6 ⁿWith their flocks and herds they shall go
to seek the Lord,
^obut they will not find him;
^phe has withdrawn from them.
7 ^qThey have dealt faithlessly with the Lord;
for they have borne alien children.
Now the new moon shall devour them with their fields.
8 ^rBlow the horn in ^sGibeah,
the trumpet in ^tRamah.
Sound the alarm at ^uBeth-aven;
we follow you, ▼

▼Or after you

O Benjamin!
9Ephraim shall become a desolation
in the day of punishment;
among the tribes of Israel
I make known what is sure.
10The princes of Judah have become
like ^wthose who move the landmark;
upon them I will pour out
my wrath like water.
11Ephraim is ^xoppressed, crushed in judgment,
because he was determined to go after filth. ▼

▼Or  to follow human precepts

12But I am ^zlike a moth to Ephraim,
and ^aalike dry rot to the house of Judah.
13 When Ephraim saw his sickness,
and Judah ^abhis wound,
then Ephraim went ^acto Assyria,
and sent to the great king. ▼

▼Or  to King Jareb

^aeBut he is not able to cure you
or heal ^afyour wound.
14For I will be ^aglike a lion to ^ahEphraim,
and like a young lion to the house of ^aiJudah.
^ajI, even I, will tear and go away;
I will carry off, and no one shall rescue.
15 ^akI will return again to my place,
until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face,
and ^alin their distress earnestly seek me.

Hosea 8

Israel Will Reap the Whirlwind

1 Set ^amthe trumpet to your lips!
One ^anlike a vulture is over the house of the Lord,
because ^aothey have transgressed my covenant
and rebelled against my law.
2To me they cry,
^ap“My God, we—Israel—know you.”
3Israel has spurned the good;
the enemy shall pursue him.
4 ^aqThey made kings, ^arbut not through me.
They set up princes, but I knew it not.
With their silver and gold they made idols
for their own destruction.
5 ^asI have ▼

▼Hebrew He has

spurned your calf, O Samaria.
My anger burns against them.
^auHow long will they be incapable of innocence?
6For it is from Israel;
a craftsman made it;
it is not God.
^avThe calf of Samaria
^awshall be broken to pieces. ▼

▼Or  shall go up in flames

7 For ^aythey 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,
^azstrangers would devour it.
8 ^baIsrael is swallowed up;
already they are among the nations
as ^bba useless vessel.
9For ^bcthey have gone up to Assyria,
^bda wild donkey wandering alone;
Ephraim has hired lovers.
10Though they hire allies among the nations,
I will soon gather them up.
And ^bethe king and princes ^bfshall soon writhe
because of the tribute.
11 Because Ephraim ^bghas multiplied altars for sinning,
they have become to him altars for sinning.
12 ^bhWere I to write for him my laws by the ten thousands,
they would be regarded as a strange thing.
13As for my sacrificial offerings,
^bithey sacrifice meat and eat it,
but the Lord does not accept them.
^bjNow he will remember their iniquity
and punish their sins;
^bkthey shall return to Egypt.
14For ^blIsrael has forgotten ^bmhis Maker
and ^bnbuilt palaces,
and ^boJudah has multiplied fortified cities;
so ^bpI will send a fire upon his cities,
and it shall devour her strongholds.