Hosea 9–12

Chapter 9

Hosea Announces Israel’s Punishment

¹O people of Israel,

do not rejoice as other nations do.

For you have been unfaithful to your God,

hiring yourselves out like prostitutes,

worshiping other gods on every threshing floor.

²So now your harvests will be too small to feed you.

There will be no grapes for making new wine.

³You may no longer stay here in the Lord’s land.

Instead, you will return to Egypt,

and in Assyria you will eat food

that is ceremonially unclean.

⁴There you will make no offerings of wine to the Lord.

None of your sacrifices there will please him.

They will be unclean, like food touched by a person in mourning.

All who present such sacrifices will be defiled.

They may eat this food themselves,

but they may not offer it to the Lord.

⁵What then will you do on festival days?

How will you observe the Lord’s festivals?

⁶Even if you escape destruction from Assyria,

Egypt will conquer you, and Memphis will bury you.

Nettles will take over your treasures of silver;

thistles will invade your ruined homes.

⁷The time of Israel’s punishment has come;

the day of payment is here.

Soon Israel will know this all too well.

Because of your great sin and hostility,

you say, “The prophets are crazy

and the inspired men are fools!”

⁸The prophet is a watchman over Israel for my God,

yet traps are laid for him wherever he goes.

He faces hostility even in the house of God.

⁹The things my people do are as depraved

as what they did in Gibeah long ago.

God will not forget.

He will surely punish them for their sins.

¹⁰The Lord says, “O Israel, when I first found you,

it was like finding fresh grapes in the desert.

When I saw your ancestors,

it was like seeing the first ripe figs of the season.

But then they deserted me for Baal-peor,

giving themselves to that shameful idol.

Soon they became vile,

as vile as the god they worshiped.

¹¹The glory of Israel will fly away like a bird,

for your children will not be born

or grow in the womb

or even be conceived.

¹²Even if you do have children who grow up,

I will take them from you.

It will be a terrible day when I turn away

and leave you alone.

¹³I have watched Israel become as beautiful as Tyre.

But now Israel will bring out her children for slaughter.”

¹⁴O Lord, what should I request for your people?

I will ask for wombs that don’t give birth

and breasts that give no milk.

¹⁵The Lord says, “All their wickedness began at Gilgal;

there I began to hate them.

I will drive them from my land

because of their evil actions.

I will love them no more

because all their leaders are rebels.

¹⁶The people of Israel are struck down.

Their roots are dried up,

and they will bear no more fruit.

And if they give birth,

I will slaughter their beloved children.”

¹⁷My God will reject the people of Israel

because they will not listen or obey.

They will be wanderers,

homeless among the nations.

Chapter 10

The Lord’s Judgment against Israel

¹How prosperous Israel is—

a luxuriant vine loaded with fruit.

But the richer the people get,

the more pagan altars they build.

The more bountiful their harvests,

the more beautiful their sacred pillars.

²The hearts of the people are fickle;

they are guilty and must be punished.

The Lord will break down their altars

and smash their sacred pillars.

³Then they will say, “We have no king

because we didn’t fear the Lord.

But even if we had a king,

what could he do for us anyway?”

⁴They spout empty words

and make covenants they don’t intend to keep.

So injustice springs up among them

like poisonous weeds in a farmer’s field.

⁵The people of Samaria tremble in fear

for their calf idol at Beth-aven,

and they mourn for it.

Though its priests rejoice over it,

its glory will be stripped away.

⁶This idol will be carted away to Assyria,

a gift to the great king there.

Ephraim will be ridiculed and Israel will be shamed,

because its people have trusted in this idol.

⁷Samaria and its king will be cut off;

they will float away like driftwood on an ocean wave.

⁸And the pagan shrines of Aven, the place of Israel’s sin, will crumble.

Thorns and thistles will grow up around their altars.

They will beg the mountains, “Bury us!”

and plead with the hills, “Fall on us!”

⁹The Lord says, “O Israel, ever since Gibeah,

there has been only sin and more sin!

You have made no progress whatsoever.

Was it not right that the wicked men of Gibeah were attacked?

¹⁰Now whenever it fits my plan,

I will attack you, too.

I will call out the armies of the nations

to punish you for your multiplied sins.

¹¹“Israel is like a trained heifer treading out the grain—

an easy job she loves.

But I will put a heavy yoke on her tender neck.

I will force Judah to pull the plow

and Israel to break up the hard ground.

¹²I said, ‘Plant the good seeds of righteousness,

and you will harvest a crop of love.

Plow up the hard ground of your hearts,

for now is the time to seek the Lord,

that he may come

and shower righteousness upon you.’

¹³“But you have cultivated wickedness

and harvested a thriving crop of sins.

You have eaten the fruit of lies—

trusting in your military might,

believing that great armies

could make your nation safe.

¹⁴Now the terrors of war

will rise among your people.

All your fortifications will fall,

just as when Shalman destroyed Beth-arbel.

Even mothers and children

were dashed to death there.

¹⁵You will share that fate, Bethel,

because of your great wickedness.

When the day of judgment dawns,

the king of Israel will be completely destroyed.

Chapter 11

The Lord’s Love for Israel

¹“When Israel was a child, I loved him,

and I called my son out of Egypt.

²But the more I called to him,

the farther he moved from me,

offering sacrifices to the images of Baal

and burning incense to idols.

³I myself taught Israel how to walk,

leading him along by the hand.

But he doesn’t know or even care

that it was I who took care of him.

⁴I led Israel along

with my ropes of kindness and love.

I lifted the yoke from his neck,

and I myself stooped to feed him.

⁵“But since my people refuse to return to me,

they will return to Egypt

and will be forced to serve Assyria.

⁶War will swirl through their cities;

their enemies will crash through their gates.

They will destroy them,

trapping them in their own evil plans.

⁷For my people are determined to desert me.

They call me the Most High,

but they don’t truly honor me.

⁸“Oh, how can I give you up, Israel?

How can I let you go?

How can I destroy you like Admah

or demolish you like Zeboiim?

My heart is torn within me,

and my compassion overflows.

⁹No, I will not unleash my fierce anger.

I will not completely destroy Israel,

for I am God and not a mere mortal.

I am the Holy One living among you,

and I will not come to destroy.

¹⁰For someday the people will follow me.

I, the Lord, will roar like a lion.

And when I roar,

my people will return trembling from the west.

¹¹Like a flock of birds, they will come from Egypt.

Trembling like doves, they will return from Assyria.

And I will bring them home again,”

says the Lord.

Charges against Israel and Judah

¹² Israel surrounds me with lies and deceit,

but Judah still obeys God

and is faithful to the Holy One.

Chapter 12

¹ The people of Israel feed on the wind;

they chase after the east wind all day long.

They pile up lies and violence;

they are making an alliance with Assyria

while sending olive oil to buy support from Egypt.

²Now the Lord is bringing charges against Judah.

He is about to punish Jacob for all his deceitful ways,

and pay him back for all he has done.

³Even in the womb,

Jacob struggled with his brother;

when he became a man,

he even fought with God.

⁴Yes, he wrestled with the angel and won.

He wept and pleaded for a blessing from him.

There at Bethel he met God face to face,

and God spoke to him—

⁵the Lord God of Heaven’s Armies,

the Lord is his name!

⁶So now, come back to your God.

Act with love and justice,

and always depend on him.

⁷But no, the people are like crafty merchants

selling from dishonest scales—

they love to cheat.

⁸Israel boasts, “I am rich!

I’ve made a fortune all by myself!

No one has caught me cheating!

My record is spotless!”

⁹“But I am the Lord your God,

who rescued you from slavery in Egypt.

And I will make you live in tents again,

as you do each year at the Festival of Shelters.

¹⁰I sent my prophets to warn you

with many visions and parables.”

¹¹But the people of Gilead are worthless

because of their idol worship.

And in Gilgal, too, they sacrifice bulls;

their altars are lined up like the heaps of stone

along the edges of a plowed field.

¹²Jacob fled to the land of Aram,

and there he earned a wife by tending sheep.

¹³Then by a prophet

the Lord brought Jacob’s descendants out of Egypt;

and by that prophet

they were protected.

¹⁴But the people of Israel

have bitterly provoked the Lord,

so their Lord will now sentence them to death

in payment for their sins.