Hosea 9

Punishment for Israel’s Sin

⁹Do not rejoice, O Israel!

Do not exult^m as other nations do,

for you have prostituted yourself, departing from your God.

You have loved a prostitute’s pay

on all threshing floors.^*

²Threshing floor and wine vat shall not feed them,

and the new wine shall fail them.^*

³They shall not remain in the land of the Lord,

but Ephraim shall return to Egypt,

and in Assyria they shall eat unclean food.^*

⁴They shall not pour drink offerings of wine to the Lord,

and their sacrifices shall not please him.

Such sacrifices shall be like mourners’ bread;

all who eat of it shall be defiled,

for their bread shall be for their hunger only;

it shall not come to the house of the Lord.^*

⁵What will you do on the day of appointed festival

and on the day of the festival of the Lord?^*

⁶For even if they escape destruction,

Egypt shall gather them;

Memphis shall bury them.

Nettles shall possess their precious things of silver;ⁿ

thorns shall be in their tents.^*

⁷The days of punishment have come;

the days of recompense have come.

Israel will cry out,^o

“The prophet is a fool;

the man of the spirit is mad!”

Because of your great iniquity,

your hostility is great.^*

⁸The prophet is a sentinel for my God over Ephraim,

yet a hunter’s snare is on all his ways

and hostility in the house of his God.^*

⁹They have deeply corrupted themselves

as in the days of Gibeah;

he will remember their iniquity;

he will punish their sins.^*

¹⁰Like grapes in the wilderness,

I found Israel.

Like the first fruit on the fig tree,

in its first season,

I saw your ancestors.

But they came to Baal-peor

and consecrated themselves to a thing of shame

and became detestable like the thing they loved.^*

¹¹Ephraim’s glory shall fly away like a bird—

no birth, no pregnancy, no conception!^*

¹²Even if they bring up children,

I will bereave them until no one is left.

Woe to them indeed

when I depart from them!^*

¹³Once I saw Ephraim as a young palm planted in a lovely meadow,^p

but now Ephraim must lead out his children for slaughter.^*

¹⁴Give them, O Lord—

what will you give?

Give them a miscarrying womb

and dry breasts.

¹⁵Every evil of theirs began at Gilgal;

there I came to hate them.

Because of the wickedness of their deeds

I will drive them out of my house.

I will love them no more;

all their officials are rebels.^*

¹⁶Ephraim is stricken,

their root is dried up,

they shall bear no fruit.

Even though they give birth,

I will kill the cherished offspring of their womb.^*

¹⁷Because they have not listened to him,

my God will reject them;

they shall become wanderers among the nations.^*