Hosea 5

Chapter 5

¹Hear this, O priests!

Give heed, O house of Israel!

Hearken, O house of the king!

For the judgment pertains to you;

for you have been a snare at Mizpah,

and a net spread upon Tabor.

²And they have made deep the pit of Shittim;^p

but I will chastise all of them.

³I know Ephraim,

and Israel is not hid from me;

for now, O Ephraim, you have played the harlot,

Israel is defiled.

⁴Their deeds do not permit them

to return to their God.

For the spirit of harlotry is within them,

and they know not the Lord.

⁵The pride of Israel testifies to his face;

Ephraim^q shall stumble in his guilt;

Judah also shall stumble with them.

⁶With their flocks and herds they shall go

to seek the Lord,

but they will not find him;

he has withdrawn from them.

⁷They have dealt faithlessly with the Lord;

for they have borne alien children.

Now the new moon shall devour them with their fields.

⁸Blow the horn in Gibe-ah,

the trumpet in Ramah.

Sound the alarm at Beth-aven;

tremble,^r O Benjamin!

⁹Ephraim shall become a desolation

in the day of punishment;

among the tribes of Israel

I declare what is sure.

¹⁰The princes of Judah have become

like those who remove the landmark;

upon them I will pour out

my wrath like water.

¹¹Ephraim is oppressed, crushed in judgment,

because he was determined to go after vanity.^s

¹²Therefore I am like a moth to Ephraim,

and like dry rot to the house of Judah.

¹³When Ephraim saw his sickness,

and Judah his wound,

then Ephraim went to Assyria,

and sent to the great king.^t

But he is not able to cure you

or heal your wound.

¹⁴For I will be like a lion to Ephraim,

and like a young lion to the house of Judah.

I, even I, will rend and go away,

I will carry off, and none shall rescue.

¹⁵I will return again to my place,

until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face,

and in their distress they seek me, saying,