Hosea 7–8

7“Whenever I want to heal my people Israel and make them prosperous again, all I can see is their wickedness and the evil they do. They cheat one another; they break into houses and steal; they rob people in the streets. ²It never enters their heads that I will remember all this evil; but their sins surround them, and I cannot avoid seeing them.”

Conspiracy in the Palace

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The Lord says, “People deceive the king and his officers by their evil plots. ⁴They are all treacherous and disloyal. Their hatred smoulders like the fire in an oven, which is not stirred by the baker until the dough is ready to bake. ⁵On the day of the king’s celebration they made the king and his officials drunk and foolish with wine. ⁶Yes, they burned^r like an oven with their plotting. All night their anger smouldered, and in the morning it burst into flames. ⁷“In the heat of their anger they murdered their rulers. Their kings have been assassinated one after another, but no one prays to me for help.”

Israel and the Nations

⁸The Lord says, “The people of Israel are like a half-baked loaf of bread. They rely on the nations around them ⁹and do not realize that this reliance on foreigners has robbed them of their strength. Their days are numbered, but they don’t even know it. ¹⁰The arrogance of the people of Israel cries out against them. In spite of everything that has happened, they have not returned to me, the Lord their God. ¹¹Israel flits about like a silly pigeon; first her people call on Egypt for help, and then they run to Assyria! ¹²But I will spread out a net and catch them like birds as they go by. I will punish them for the evil they have done.^s

¹³“They are doomed! They have left me and rebelled against me. They will be destroyed. I wanted to save them, but their worship of me was false. ¹⁴They have not prayed to me sincerely, but instead they throw themselves down and wail as the heathen do. When they pray for corn and wine, they gash themselves like pagans. What rebels they are! ¹⁵Even though I was the one who brought them up and made them strong, they plotted against me. ¹⁶They keep on turning away from me to a god that is powerless.^t They are as unreliable as a crooked bow. Because their leaders talk arrogantly, they will die a violent death, and the Egyptians will laugh.”

The Condemns Israel for Idol Worship

8The Lord says, “Sound the alarm! Enemies are swooping down on my land like eagles! My people have broken the covenant I made with them and have rebelled against my teaching. ²Even though they call me their God and claim that they are my people and that they know me, ³they have rejected what is good. Because of this their enemies will pursue them.

⁴“My people chose kings, but they did it on their own. They appointed leaders, but without my approval. They took their silver and gold and made idols—for their own destruction. ⁵I hate the gold bull worshipped by the people of the city of Samaria. I am furious with them. How long will it be before they give up their idolatry? ⁶An Israelite craftsman made the idol, and it is not a god at all! The gold bull worshipped in Samaria will be smashed to pieces! ⁷When they sow the wind, they will reap a storm! A field of corn that doesn’t ripen can never produce any bread. But even if it did, foreigners would eat it up. ⁸Israel has become like any other nation and is as useless as a broken pot. ⁹Stubborn as wild donkeys, the people of Israel go their own way. They have gone off to seek help from Assyria, and have paid other nations to protect them. ¹⁰But now I am going to gather them together and punish them. Soon they will writhe in pain, when the emperor of Assyria oppresses them.

¹¹“The more altars the people of Israel build for removing sin, the more places they have for sinning! ¹²I write down countless teachings for the people, but they reject them as strange and foreign. ¹³They offer sacrifices to me and eat the meat of the sacrifices.^u But I, the Lord, am not pleased with them, and now I will remember their sin and punish them for it; I will send them back to Egypt!

¹⁴“The people of Israel have built palaces, but they have forgotten their own Maker. The people of Judah have built fortified cities. But I will send fire that will burn down their palaces and their cities.”