Hosea 7–8

7“When I would have healed Israel,

Then the iniquity of Ephraim was uncovered,

And the wickedness of Samaria.

For ^athey have committed fraud;

A thief comes in;

A band of robbers ¹takes spoil outside.

²They ²do not consider in their hearts

That ^bI remember all their wickedness;

Now their own deeds have surrounded them;

They are before My face.

³They make a ^cking glad with their wickedness,

And princes ^dwith their lies.

⁴“They ^eare all adulterers.

Like an oven heated by a baker—

He ceases stirring the fire after kneading the dough,

Until it is leavened.

⁵In the day of our king

Princes have made him sick, ³inflamed with ^fwine;

He stretched out his hand with scoffers.

⁶They prepare their heart like an oven,

While they lie in wait;

⁴Their baker sleeps all night;

In the morning it burns like a flaming fire.

⁷They are all hot, like an oven,

And have devoured their judges;

All their kings have fallen.

^gNone among them calls upon Me.

⁸“Ephraim ^hhas mixed himself among the peoples;

Ephraim is a cake unturned.

⁹ⁱAliens have devoured his strength,

But he does not know it;

Yes, gray hairs are here and there on him,

Yet he does not know it.

¹⁰And the ^jpride of Israel testifies to his face,

But ^kthey do not return to the Lord their God,

Nor seek Him for all this.

Futile Reliance on the Nations

¹¹“Ephraim ^lalso is like a silly dove, without ⁵sense—

^mThey call to Egypt,

They go to ⁿAssyria.

¹²Wherever they go, I will ^ospread My net on them;

I will bring them down like birds of the air;

I will chastise them

^pAccording to what their congregation has heard.

¹³“Woe to them, for they have fled from Me!

Destruction to them,

Because they have transgressed against Me!

Though ^qI redeemed them,

Yet they have spoken lies against Me.

^14rThey did not cry out to Me with their heart

When they wailed upon their beds.

“They ⁶assemble together for grain and new ^swine,

⁷They rebel against Me;

¹⁵Though I disciplined and strengthened their arms,

Yet they devise evil against Me;

¹⁶They return, but not ⁸to the Most High;

^tThey are like a treacherous bow.

Their princes shall fall by the sword

For the ^ucursings of their tongue.

This shall be their derision ^vin the land of Egypt.

The Apostasy of Israel

8“Set the ¹trumpet to your mouth!

He shall come ^alike an eagle against the house of the Lord,

Because they have transgressed My covenant

And rebelled against My law.

^2bIsrael will cry to Me,

‘My God, ^cwe know You!’

³Israel has rejected the good;

The enemy will pursue him.

⁴“They ^dset up kings, but not by Me;

They made princes, but I did not acknowledge them.

From their silver and gold

They made idols for themselves—

That they might be cut off.

⁵Your ²calf ³is rejected, O Samaria!

My anger is aroused against them—

^eHow long until they attain to innocence?

⁶For from Israel is even this:

A ^fworkman made it, and it is not God;

But the calf of Samaria shall be broken to pieces.

⁷“They ^gsow the wind,

And reap the whirlwind.

The stalk has no bud;

It shall never produce meal.

If it should produce,

^hAliens would swallow it up.

⁸ⁱIsrael is swallowed up;

Now they are among the Gentiles

^jLike a vessel in which is no pleasure.

⁹For they have gone up to Assyria,

Like ^ka wild donkey alone by itself;

Ephraim ^lhas hired lovers.

¹⁰Yes, though they have hired among the nations,

Now ^mI will gather them;

And they shall ⁴sorrow a little,

Because of the ⁵burden of ⁿthe king of princes.

¹¹“Because Ephraim has made many altars for sin,

They have become for him altars for sinning.

¹²I have written for him ^othe great things of My law,

But they were considered a strange thing.

¹³For the sacrifices of My offerings ^pthey sacrifice flesh and eat it,

^qBut the Lord does not accept them.

^rNow He will remember their iniquity and punish their sins.

They shall return to Egypt.

¹⁴“For ^sIsrael has forgotten ^this Maker,

And has built ⁶temples;

Judah also has multiplied ^ufortified cities;

But ^vI will send fire upon his cities,

And it shall devour his ⁷palaces.”