Hosea 5

The Priests Are a Snare

5Hear this, O priests!

Give heed, O house of Israel!

Listen, O house of the king!

Because the judgment applies to you;

because you have been a snare for Mizpah,

and a net spread out on Tabor;

²they dug a deep pit^a in Shittim,

but I am a punishment for all of them.

³I myself know Ephraim,

and Israel is not hidden from me;

because now you have played the whore, O Ephraim—

Israel is defiled.

⁴Their deeds do not permit them

to return them to God.

Because a spirit of whoredom is in their midst,

they do not know Yahweh.

⁵The pride of Israel testifies against him,^b

and Israel and Ephraim stumble in their guilt,

and Judah stumbles with them.

⁶With their flocks^c and herds^d they will go

to seek Yahweh, but they will not find him;

he has withdrawn from them.

⁷They have dealt faithlessly with Yahweh

because they have borne illegitimate children.

Now the new moon will devour them with their fields.

⁸Blow the horn^e in Gibeah,

the trumpet in Ramah.

Sound the alarm in Beth-aven;

look behind you, Benjamin.

⁹Ephraim will be a desolation

in the day of punishment;

among the tribes of Israel

I will reveal what is true.

¹⁰The princes of Judah have become

like those who remove a landmark;

on them I will pour out

my wrath like water.

¹¹Ephraim is oppressed,

crushed in judgment,

because he was determined

to go after filth.^f

¹²But I am like a maggot to Ephraim

and like rottenness to the house of Judah.

¹³And when Ephraim saw his illness,

and Judah his wound,

Ephraim went to Assyria,

he sent to the great king.^g

But he was unable to cure you

and heal your wound.

¹⁴Because I will be like a lion to Ephraim

and like a fierce strong lion to the house of Judah.

I myself will tear and I will go;

I will carry off, and there is no one who delivers.

¹⁵I will return again^h to my place

until they acknowledge their guilt

and seek my face;

in their distress they will searchⁱ me.