Hosea 10–12

You Thought You Could Do It All on Your Own

^1–210Israel was once a lush vine,

bountiful in grapes.

The more lavish the harvest,

the more promiscuous the worship.

The more money they got,

the more they squandered on gods-in-their-own-image.

Their sweet smiles are sheer lies.

They’re guilty as sin.

God will smash their worship shrines,

pulverize their god-images.

^3–4They go around saying,

“Who needs a king?

We couldn’t care less about God,

so why bother with a king?

What difference would he make?”

They talk big,

lie through their teeth,

make deals.

But their high-sounding words

turn out to be empty words, litter in the gutters.

^5–6The people of Samaria travel over to Crime City

to worship the golden calf-god.

They go all out, prancing and hollering,

taken in by their showmen priests.

They act so important around the calf-god,

but are oblivious to the sham, the shame.

They have plans to take it to Assyria,

present it as a gift to the great king.

And so Ephraim makes a fool of himself,

disgraces Israel with his stupid idols.

^7–8Samaria is history. Its king

is a dead branch floating down the river.

Israel’s favorite sin centers

will all be torn down.

Thistles and crabgrass

will decorate their ruined altars.

Then they’ll say to the mountains, “Bury us!”

and to the hills, “Fall on us!”

^9–10You got your start in sin at Gibeah—

that ancient, unspeakable, shocking sin—

And you’ve been at it ever since.

And Gibeah will mark the end of it

in a war to end all the sinning.

I’ll come to teach them a lesson.

Nations will gang up on them,

Making them learn the hard way

the sum of Gibeah plus Gibeah.

^11–15Ephraim was a trained heifer

that loved to thresh.

Passing by and seeing her strong, sleek neck,

I wanted to harness Ephraim,

Put Ephraim to work in the fields—

Judah plowing, Jacob harrowing:

Sow righteousness,

reap love.

It’s time to till the ready earth,

it’s time to dig in with God,

Until he arrives

with righteousness ripe for harvest.

But instead you plowed wicked ways,

reaped a crop of evil and ate a salad of lies.

You thought you could do it all on your own,

flush with weapons and manpower.

But the volcano of war will erupt among your people.

All your defense posts will be leveled

As viciously as king Shalman

leveled the town of Beth-arba,

When mothers and their babies

were smashed on the rocks.

That’s what’s ahead for you, you so-called people of God,

because of your off-the-charts evil.

Some morning you’re going to wake up

and find Israel, king and kingdom, a blank—nothing.

Israel Played at Religion with Toy Gods

^1–911“When Israel was only a child, I loved him.

I called out, ‘My son!’—called him out of Egypt.

But when others called him,

he ran off and left me.

He worshiped the popular sex gods,

he played at religion with toy gods.

Still, I stuck with him. I led Ephraim.

I rescued him from human bondage,

But he never acknowledged my help,

never admitted that I was the one pulling his wagon,

That I lifted him, like a baby, to my cheek,

then I bent down to feed him.

Now he wants to go back to Egypt or go over to Assyria—

anything but return to me!

That’s why his cities are unsafe—the murder rate skyrockets

and every plan to improve things falls to pieces.

My people are hell-bent on leaving me.

They pray to god Baal for help.

He doesn’t lift a finger to help them.

But how can I give up on you, Ephraim?

How can I turn you loose, Israel?

How can I leave you to be ruined like Admah,

devastated like luckless Zeboim?

I can’t bear to even think such thoughts.

My insides churn in protest.

And so I’m not going to act on my anger.

I’m not going to destroy Ephraim.

And why? Because I am God and not a human.

I’m The Holy One and I’m here—in your very midst.

^10–12“The people will end up following God.

I will roar like a lion—

Oh, how I’ll roar!

My frightened children will come running from the west.

Like frightened birds they’ll come from Egypt,

from Assyria like scared doves.

I’ll move them back into their homes.”

God’s Word!

Soul-Destroying Lies

Ephraim tells lies right and left.

Not a word of Israel can be trusted.

Judah, meanwhile, is no better,

addicted to cheap gods.

^1–512Ephraim, obsessed with god-fantasies,

chases ghosts and phantoms.

He tells lies nonstop,

soul-destroying lies.

Both Ephraim and Judah made deals with Assyria

and tried to get an inside track with Egypt.

God is bringing charges against Israel.

Jacob’s children are hauled into court to be punished.

In the womb, that heel, Jacob, got the best of his brother.

When he grew up, he tried to get the best of God.

But God would not be bested.

God bested him.

Brought to his knees,

Jacob wept and prayed.

God found him at Bethel.

That’s where he spoke with him.

God is God-of-the-Angel-Armies,

God-Revealed, God-Known.

⁶What are you waiting for? Return to your God!

Commit yourself in love, in justice!

Wait for your God,

and don’t give up on him—ever!

^7–8The businessmen engage in wholesale fraud.

They love to rip people off!

Ephraim boasted, “Look, I’m rich!

I’ve made it big!

And look how well I’ve covered my tracks:

not a hint of fraud, not a sign of sin!”

^9–11“But not so fast! I’m God, your God!

Your God from the days in Egypt!

I’m going to put you back to living in tents,

as in the old days when you worshiped in the wilderness.

I speak through the prophets

to give clear pictures of the way things are.

Using prophets, I tell revealing stories.

I show Gilead rampant with religious scandal

and Gilgal teeming with empty-headed religion.

I expose their worship centers as

stinking piles of garbage in their gardens.”

^12–14Are you going to repeat the life of your ancestor Jacob?

He ran off guilty to Aram,

Then sold his soul to get ahead,

and made it big through treachery and deceit.

Your real identity is formed through God-sent prophets,

who led you out of Egypt and served as faithful pastors.

As it is, Ephraim has continually

and inexcusably insulted God.

Now he has to pay for his life-destroying ways.

His Master will do to him what he has done.