Hosea 6:4–9:17

4  nO Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee?

nO Judah, what shall I do unto thee?

For your ||goodness is oas a morning cloud,

oAnd as the early dew it goeth away.

5  Therefore have I hewed them pby the prophets;

I have slain them qby the words of my mouth:

||And thy judgments are as the light that goeth forth.

6  For rI desired mercy, and rsnot sacrifice;

And tthe knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.

7  But they ||like men uhave transgressed the covenant:

There vhave they dealt treacherously against me.

8  wGilead is a city of them that work iniquity,

And is ||polluted with blood.

9  And as ytroops of robbers wait for a man,

zSo athe company of priests murder in the way †by consent:

For dthey commit ||lewdness.

10  I have seen ean horrible thing in the house of Israel:

fThere is the whoredom of Ephraim, fIsrael is defiled.

11  Also, O Judah, ghe hath set an harvest for thee,

hWhen I returned the captivity of my people.

7 When I would have healed Israel,

Then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, and the †awickedness of bSamaria:

For they commit falsehood; and the thief cometh in,

And cthe troop of robbers †dspoileth without.

2  And they †consider not in their hearts

That I remember all their awickedness:

Now etheir own doings have beset them about;

They are fbefore my face.

3  gThey make the king glad with their awickedness,

And the princes gwith their lies.

4  hThey are all adulterers, as an oven heated by the baker,

||Who ceaseth ||from raising after he hath ikneaded the dough, until it be leavened.

5  In the day kof our king the princes have made him sick ||with lbottles of wine;

He stretched out his hand with scorners.

6  For they have ||made ready their heart olike an oven, whiles mthey lie in wait:

nTheir baker sleepeth all the night;

In nothe morning it burneth as a flaming fire.

7  They are all hot as an oven,

And have devoured their judges;

pAll their kings qare fallen:

There is rnone among them that calleth unto me.

8  Ephraim, she hath mixed himself among the people;

Ephraim is a cake not turned.

9  tStrangers have devoured his strength, uand he knoweth it not:

Yea, gray hairs are †here and there upon him, uyet he knoweth not.

10  And vthe pride of Israel testifieth to his face:

And wthey do not return to the Lord their God, nor seek him for all this.

11  xEphraim also is like a ysilly dove without heart:

xzaThey call to Egypt, abthey go to Assyria.

12  When they shall go, cI will spread my net upon them;

I will bring them down as the fowls of the heaven;

dI will chastise them, eas their congregation hath heard.

13  Woe unto them! for they have fled from me:

†fDestruction unto them! because they have transgressed against me:

Though gI have redeemed them, yet they have hspoken lies against me.

14  And ithey have not cried unto me with their heart,

When they howled jupon their beds:

They assemble themselves for corn and kwine,

And they rebel against me.

15  Though I ||have bound and lstrengthened their arms,

Yet do they imagine mischief against me.

16  They return, but not to mthe most High:

They are nlike a deceitful bow:

Their princes shall fall by the sword ofor the rage of their tongue:

This shall be their derision pin the land of Egypt.

8 *Set athe trumpet to †thy mouth.

He shall come bas an eagle against the house of the Lord,

Because cthey have transgressed my covenant,

And trespassed against my law.

2  Israel shall cry unto me, dMy God, we know thee.

3  Israel jhath cast off the thing that is good:

The enemy shall pursue him.

4  eThey have set up kings, fbut not by me:

They have made princes, and I knew it not:

Of gtheir silver and their gold have they made them idols,

That they may be cut off.

5  hThy calf, iO Samaria, jhath cast thee off;

Mine anger is kindled against them:

kHow long will it be ere they attain to linnocency?

6  For from Israel was it also:

The workman made it; therefore it is not God:

But hthe calf of iSamaria llshall be broken in pieces.

7  For mthey have sown the wind, and mthey shall reap the whirlwind:

It hath no ||stalk: the bud shall yield no meal:

If so be it yield, nthe strangers shall swallow it up.

8  oIsrael is swallowed up:

Now shall they be among the Gentiles as pa vessel wherein is no pleasure.

9  *For qthey are gone up to Assyria, qqa wild ass ralone by himself:

sEphraim hath hired †lovers.

10  Yea, though sthey have hired among the nations, now twill I gather them,

And they shall ||sorrow ||a little for the burden of uthe king of princes.

11  Because Ephraim vhath made many altars to sin,

Altars shall be unto him to sin.

12  wI have written to him xthe great things of my law,

But they were counted as a strange thing.

13  y||They sacrifice flesh for the sacrifices of mine offerings, and eat it;

But zthe Lord accepteth them not;

Now abwill he remember their iniquity, and avisit their sins:

cThey shall return to Egypt.

14  For dIsrael hath forgotten ehis Maker, and fbuildeth temples;

And Judah hath multiplied fenced cities:

But gI will send a fire upon his cities,

And git shall devour the palaces thereof.

9 aRejoice not, O Israel, for joy, as other people:

For bthou hast gone a whoring from thy God,

Thou hast loved ca reward ||upon every cornfloor.

2  dThe floor and dthe ||winepress shall not feed them,

And dethe new wine shall eefail in her.

3  They shall not dwell in fthe Lord’s land;

But gEphraim shall return to Egypt,

And hthey shall eat unclean things iin Assyria.

4  kThey shall not offer wine offerings to the Lord,

lNeither shall they be pleasing unto him:

Their sacrifices shall be unto them as mthe bread of mourners;

nAll that eat thereof shall be polluted:

For their bread for their soul shall not come into the house of the Lord.

5  What will ye do in othe solemn day,

And in the day of othe feast of the Lord?

6  For, lo, they are gone because of †destruction:

gEgypt shall gather them up, pMemphis shall bury them:

||†The pleasant places for their silver, qnettles shall possess them:

qThorns shall be in their tabernacles.

7  rThe days of visitation are come,

The days of srecompence are come;

sIsrael shall know it:

tThe prophet is a fool, tthe †spiritual man is umad,

For the multitude of thine iniquity, and the great hatred.

8  vThe watchman of Ephraim was with my God:

But tthe prophet is wa snare of a fowler in all his ways,

And hatred ||in the house of his God.

9  They have xdeeply ycorrupted themselves, as zin the days of Gibeah:

Therefore ahe will remember their iniquity, ahe will visit their sins.

10  I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness;

I saw your fathers as bthe firstripe in the fig tree cat her first time:

But dthey went to eBaal-peor, and fseparated themselves unto gthat shame;

And htheir abominations were according as they loved.

11  As for Ephraim, itheir glory shall fly away like a bird,

jFrom the birth, and from the womb, and from the conception.

12  kThough they bring up their children,

Yet will I bereave them, that there shall not be a man left:

Yea, lwoe also to them mwhen I depart from them!

13  Ephraim, as I saw nTyrus, is planted in a pleasant place:

But Ephraim kshall bring forth his children to the murderer.

14  Give them, O Lord: what wilt thou give?

Give them oa †miscarrying womb and odry breasts.

15  All their wickedness is pin Gilgal: for there I hated them:

For the wickedness of their doings I will drive them out of mine house,

I will love them no more:

All qtheir princes are rrevolters.

16  Ephraim is smitten, jstheir root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit:

Yea, kthough they bring forth, yet will I slay even †the beloved fruit of their womb.

17  My God will cast them away, because they did not hearken unto him:

And tthey shall be wanderers among the nations.