Hosea 9–10

Starved for God

^1–69Don’t waste your life in wild orgies, Israel.

Don’t party away your life with the heathen.

You walk away from your God at the drop of a hat

and like a whore sell yourself promiscuously

at every sex-and-religion party on the street.

All that party food won’t fill you up.

You’ll end up hungrier than ever.

At this rate you’ll not last long in God’s land:

Some of you are going to end up bankrupt in Egypt.

Some of you will be disillusioned in Assyria.

As refugees in Egypt and Assyria,

you won’t have much chance to worship God—

Sentenced to rations of bread and water,

and your souls polluted by the spirit-dirty air.

You’ll be starved for God,

exiled from God’s own country.

Will you be homesick for the old Holy Days?

Will you miss festival worship of God?

Be warned! When you escape from the frying pan of disaster,

you’ll fall into the fire of Egypt.

Egypt will give you a fine funeral!

What use will all your god-inspired silver be then

as you eke out a living in a field of weeds?

^7–9Time’s up. Doom’s at the doorstep.

It’s payday!

Did Israel bluster, “The prophet is crazy!

The ‘man of the Spirit’ is nuts!”?

Think again. Because of your great guilt,

you’re in big trouble.

The prophet is looking out for Ephraim,

working under God’s orders.

But everyone is trying to trip him up.

He’s hated right in God’s house, of all places.

The people are going from bad to worse,

rivaling that ancient and unspeakable crime at Gibeah.

God’s keeping track of their guilt.

He’ll make them pay for their sins.

They Took to Sin Like a Pig to Filth

^10–13“Long ago when I came upon Israel,

it was like finding grapes out in the desert.

When I found your ancestors, it was like finding

a fig tree bearing fruit for the first time.

But when they arrived at Baal-peor, that pagan shrine,

they took to sin like a pig to filth,

wallowing in the mud with their newfound friends.

Ephraim is fickle and scattered, like a flock of blackbirds,

their beauty dissipated in confusion and clamor,

Frenetic and noisy, frigid and barren,

and nothing to show for it—neither conception nor childbirth.

Even if they did give birth, I’d declare them

unfit parents and take away their children!

Yes indeed—a black day for them

when I turn my back and walk off!

I see Ephraim letting his children run wild.

He might just as well take them and kill them outright!”

¹⁴Give it to them, God! But what?

Give them a dried-up womb and shriveled breasts.

^15–16“All their evil came out into the open

at the pagan shrine at Gilgal. Oh, how I hated them there!

Because of their evil practices,

I’ll kick them off my land.

I’m wasting no more love on them.

Their leaders are a bunch of rebellious adolescents.

Ephraim is hit hard—

roots withered, no more fruit.

Even if by some miracle they had children,

the dear babies wouldn’t live—I’d make sure of that!”

¹⁷My God has washed his hands of them.

They wouldn’t listen.

They’re doomed to be wanderers,

vagabonds among the godless nations.

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.