My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.
Because you have rejected knowledge,
I will reject you from serving as My priest.
Since you have forgotten the law of your God,
I will also forget your sons.

When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called My son.

When the Lord first spoke to Hosea, He said this to him:

Go and marry a promiscuous wife
and have children of promiscuity,
for the land is committing blatant acts of promiscuity
by abandoning the Lord.

For I desire loyalty and not sacrifice,
the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

Then the Lord said to him:

Name him Jezreel, for in a little while
I will bring the bloodshed of Jezreel
on the house of Jehu
and put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel.

You will stumble by day;
the prophet will also stumble with you by night.
And I will destroy your mother.

Otherwise, I will strip her naked
and expose her as she was on the day of her birth.
I will make her like a desert
and like a parched land,
and I will let her die of thirst.

She conceived again and gave birth to a daughter, and the Lord said to him:

Name her No Compassion,
for I will no longer have compassion
on the house of Israel.
I will certainly take them away.

On that day I will break the bow of Israel
in the Valley of Jezreel.

Hear the word of the Lord, people of Israel,
for the Lord has a case
against the inhabitants of the land:
There is no truth, no faithful love,
and no knowledge of God in the land!

Come, let us return to the Lord.
For He has torn us,
and He will heal us;
He has wounded us,
and He will bind up our wounds.

But I will have compassion on the house of Judah,
and I will deliver them by the Lord their God.
I will not deliver them by bow, sword, or war,
or by horses and cavalry.

And the Judeans and the Israelites
will be gathered together.
They will appoint for themselves a single ruler
and go up from the land.
For the day of Jezreel will be great.

>

After Gomer had weaned No Compassion, she conceived and gave birth to a son.

But they, like Adam, have violated the covenant;
there they have betrayed Me.

Then the Lord said:

Name him Not My People,
for you are not My people,
and I will not be your God.

Ephraim surrounds me with lies,
the house of Israel, with deceit.
Judah still wanders with God
and is faithful to the holy ones.

I discovered Israel
like grapes in the wilderness.
I saw your fathers
like the first fruit of the fig tree in its first season.
But they went to Baal-peor,
consecrated themselves to Shame,
and became detestable,
like the thing they loved.

Gilead is a city of evildoers,
tracked with bloody footprints.

Ephraim has allowed himself to get mixed up with the nations.
Ephraim is unturned bread baked on a griddle.

I will have no compassion on her children
because they are the children of promiscuity.

Ephraim is a well-trained calf
that loves to thresh,
but I will place a yoke on her fine neck.
I will harness Ephraim;
Judah will plow;
Jacob will do the final plowing.

They go with their flocks and herds
to seek the Lord
but do not find Him;
He has withdrawn from them.

Ephraim’s glory will fly away like a bird:
no birth, no gestation, no conception.

The Lord brought Israel from Egypt by a prophet,
and Israel was tended by a prophet.

For they have gone up to Assyria
like a wild donkey going off on its own.
Ephraim has paid for love.

The more they multiplied,
the more they sinned against Me.
I will change their honor into disgrace.

Yes, their mother is promiscuous;
she conceived them and acted shamefully.
For she thought, “I will go after my lovers,
the men who give me my food and water,
my wool and flax, my oil and drink.”

They feed on the sin of My people;
they have an appetite for their transgressions.

Although he flourishes among his brothers,
an east wind will come,
a wind from the Lord rising up from the desert.
His water source will fail,
and his spring will run dry.
The wind will plunder the treasury
of every precious item.

Like raiders who wait in ambush for someone,
a band of priests murders on the road to Shechem.
They commit atrocities.

Therefore, this is what I will do:
I will block her way with thorns;
I will enclose her with a wall,
so that she cannot find her paths.

Afterward, the people of Israel will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They will come with awe to the Lord and to His goodness in the last days.

Foreigners consume his strength,
but he does not notice.
Even his hair is streaked with gray,
but he does not notice.

Ephraim has provoked bitter anger,
so his Lord will leave his bloodguilt on him
and repay him for his contempt.

>

They betrayed the Lord;
indeed, they gave birth to illegitimate children.
Now the New Moon will devour them
along with their fields.

I have seen something horrible in the house of Israel:
Ephraim’s promiscuity is there; Israel is defiled.

When Ephraim multiplied his altars for sin,
they became his altars for sinning.

Even if they raise children,
I will bereave them of each one.
Yes, woe to them when I depart from them!

Even though they hire lovers among the nations,
I will now round them up,
and they will begin to decrease in number
under the burden of the king and leaders.

The same judgment will happen
to both people and priests.
I will punish them for their ways
and repay them for their deeds.

Blow the horn in Gibeah,
the trumpet in Ramah;
raise the war cry in Beth-aven:
After you, Benjamin!

A harvest is also appointed for you, Judah.

When I return My people from captivity,

>

She does not recognize
that it is I who gave her the grain,
the new wine, and the oil.
I lavished silver and gold on her,
which they used for Baal.

Promiscuity, wine, and new wine
take away one’s understanding.

They sacrifice on the mountaintops,
and they burn offerings on the hills,
and under oaks, poplars, and terebinths,
because their shade is pleasant.
And so your daughters act promiscuously
and your daughters-in-law commit adultery.

You have plowed wickedness and reaped injustice;
you have eaten the fruit of lies.
Because you have trusted in your own way
and in your large number of soldiers,

As they are going, I will spread My net over them;
I will bring them down like birds of the sky.
I will discipline them in accordance
with the news that reaches their assembly.

Therefore, I will take back My grain in its time
and My new wine in its season;
I will take away My wool and linen,
which were to cover her nakedness.

She will pursue her lovers but not catch them;
she will seek them but not find them.
Then she will think,
“I will go back to my former husband,
for then it was better for me than now.”

the roar of battle will rise against your people,
and all your fortifications will be demolished
in a day of war,
like Shalman’s destruction of Beth-arbel.
Mothers will be dashed to pieces
along with their children.

A merchant loves to extort
with dishonest scales in his hands.

All their evil appears at Gilgal,
for there I came to hate them.
I will drive them from My house
because of their evil, wicked actions.
I will no longer love them;
all their leaders are rebellious.

Woe to them, for they fled from Me;
destruction to them, for they rebelled against Me!
Though I want to redeem them,
they speak lies against Me.

Call your brothers: My People
and your sisters: Compassion.

They will eat but not be satisfied;
they will be promiscuous but not multiply.
For they have abandoned their devotion to the Lord.

So it will be done to you, Bethel,
because of your extreme evil.
At dawn the king of Israel will be totally destroyed.

Rebuke your mother; rebuke her.
For she is not My wife and I am not her husband.
Let her remove the promiscuous look from her face
and her adultery from between her breasts.

Now I will expose her shame
in the sight of her lovers,
and no one will rescue her from My hands.

And I will punish her for the days of the Baals
when she burned incense to them,
put on her rings and jewelry,
and went after her lovers,
but forgot Me.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

The residents of Samaria will have anxiety
over the calf of Beth-aven.
Indeed, its idolatrous priests rejoiced over it;
the people will mourn over it,
over its glory.
It will certainly depart from them.

Ephraim is struck down;
their roots are withered;
they cannot bear fruit.
Even if they bear children,
I will kill the precious offspring of their wombs.

I will devastate her vines and fig trees.
She thinks that these are her wages
that her lovers have given her.
I will turn them into a thicket,
and the wild animals will eat them.

I will put an end to all her celebrations:
her feasts, New Moons, and Sabbaths—
all her festivals.

Israel’s arrogance testifies against them,
yet they do not return to Yahweh their God,
and for all this, they do not seek Him.

Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces;
Judah has also multiplied fortified cities.
I will send fire on their cities,
and it will consume their citadels.

Ephraim will become a desolation
on the day of punishment;
I announce what is certain
among the tribes of Israel.

I will not punish your daughters
when they act promiscuously
or your daughters-in-law
when they commit adultery,
for the men themselves go off with prostitutes
and make sacrifices with cult prostitutes.
People without discernment are doomed.

My people consult their wooden idols,
and their divining rods inform them.
For a spirit of promiscuity leads them astray;
they act promiscuously
in disobedience to their God.

My God will reject them
because they have not listened to Him;
they will become wanderers among the nations.

Though I were to write out for him
ten thousand points of My instruction,
they would be regarded as something strange.

There I will give her vineyards back to her
and make the Valley of Achor
into a gateway of hope.
There she will respond as she did
in the days of her youth,
as in the day she came out of the land of Egypt.

I will sow her in the land for Myself,
and I will have compassion
on No Compassion;
I will say to Not My People:
You are My people,
and he will say, “You are My God.”

On that day I will make a covenant for them
with the wild animals, the birds of the sky,
and the creatures that crawl on the ground.
I will shatter bow, sword,
and weapons of war in the land
and will enable the people to rest securely.

Israel is a lush vine;
it yields fruit for itself.
The more his fruit increased,
the more he increased the altars.
The better his land produced,
the better they made the sacred pillars.

How can I give you up, Ephraim?
How can I surrender you, Israel?
How can I make you like Admah?
How can I treat you like Zeboiim?
I have had a change of heart;
My compassion is stirred!

Israel, if you act promiscuously,
don’t let Judah become guilty!
Do not go to Gilgal
or make a pilgrimage to Beth-aven,
and do not swear an oath: As the Lord lives!

When their drinking is over,
they turn to promiscuity.
Israel’s leaders fervently love disgrace.

In fact, they are now saying,
“We have no king!
For we do not fear the Lord.
What can a king do for us?”

The princes of Judah are like those
who move boundary markers;
I will pour out My fury on them like water.

I will not vent the full fury of My anger;
I will not turn back to destroy Ephraim.
For I am God and not man,
the Holy One among you;
I will not come in rage.

I led them with human cords,
with ropes of love.
To them I was like one
who eases the yoke from their jaws;
I bent down to give them food.

Ephraim chases the wind
and pursues the east wind.
He continually multiplies lies and violence.
He makes a covenant with Assyria,
and olive oil is carried to Egypt.

I will depart and return to My place
until they recognize their guilt and seek My face;
they will search for Me in their distress.

On that day I will respond—
this is the Lord’s declaration.
I will respond to the sky,
and it will respond to the earth.

Though they offer sacrificial gifts
and eat the flesh,
the Lord does not accept them.
Now He will remember their guilt
and punish their sins;
they will return to Egypt.

So Ephraim has become like a silly, senseless dove;
they call to Egypt, and they go to Assyria.

Ephraim is attached to idols;
leave him alone!

Ephraim is oppressed, crushed in judgment,
for he is determined to follow what is worthless.

For I will remove the names of the Baals
from her mouth;
they will no longer be remembered by their names.

I have seen Ephraim like Tyre,
planted in a meadow,
so Ephraim will bring out his children
to the executioner.

Cursing, lying, murder, stealing,
and adultery are rampant;
one act of bloodshed follows another.

Jacob struggled with the Angel and prevailed;
he wept and sought His favor.
He found him at Bethel,
and there He spoke with him.

I spoke through the prophets
and granted many visions;
I gave parables through the prophets.

The high places of Aven, the sin of Israel,
will be destroyed;
thorns and thistles will grow over their altars.
They will say to the mountains, “Cover us!”
and to the hills, “Fall on us!”

They do not cry to Me from their hearts;
rather, they wail on their beds.
They slash themselves for grain and new wine;
they turn away from Me.

For Israel is as obstinate as a stubborn cow.
Can the Lord now shepherd them
like a lamb in an open meadow?

I will take you to be My wife in faithfulness,
and you will know Yahweh.

In the womb he grasped his brother’s heel,
and as an adult he wrestled with God.

The Lord also has a dispute with Judah.
He is about to punish Jacob according to his ways;
He will repay him based on his actions.

They will follow the Lord;
He will roar like a lion.
When He roars,
His children will come trembling from the west.

But you must return to your God.
Maintain love and justice,
and always put your hope in God.

Indeed, they sow the wind
and reap the whirlwind.
There is no standing grain;
what sprouts fails to yield flour.
Even if they did,
foreigners would swallow it up.

The earth will respond to the grain,
the new wine, and the oil,
and they will respond to Jezreel.

When Ephraim saw his sickness
and Judah his wound,
Ephraim went to Assyria
and sent a delegation to the great king.
But he cannot cure you or heal your wound.

Put the horn to your mouth!
One like an eagle comes
against the house of the Lord,
because they transgress My covenant
and rebel against My law.

Jacob fled to the land of Aram.
Israel worked to earn a wife;
he tended flocks for a wife.

My people are bent on turning from Me.
Though they call to Him on high,
He will not exalt them at all.

Give them, Lord—
What should You give?
Give them a womb that miscarries
and breasts that are dry!

Their hearts are devious;
now they must bear their guilt.
The Lord will break down their altars
and demolish their sacred pillars.

So he went and married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.

The more they called them,
the more they departed from Me.
They kept sacrificing to the Baals
and burning offerings to idols.

They will be roused like birds from Egypt
and like doves from the land of Assyria.
Then I will settle them in their homes.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

Since Gilead is full of evil,
they will certainly come to nothing.
They sacrifice bulls in Gilgal;
even their altars will be like heaps of rocks
on the furrows of a field.

For this reason the land mourns,
and everyone who lives in it languishes,
along with the wild animals and the birds of the sky;
even the fish of the sea disappear.

Israel, you have sinned
since the days of Gibeah;
they have taken their stand there.
Will not war against the unjust
overtake them in Gibeah?

It was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
taking them in My arms,
but they never knew that I healed them.

I have been Yahweh your God
ever since the land of Egypt.
I will make you live in tents again,
as in the festival days.

But Ephraim says:
“How rich I have become;
I made it all myself.
In all my earnings,
no one can find any crime in me
that I can be punished for!”

They speak mere words,
taking false oaths while making covenants.
So lawsuits break out
like poisonous weeds in the furrows of a field.

Yahweh is the God of Hosts;
Yahweh is His name.

What am I going to do with you, Ephraim?
What am I going to do with you, Judah?
Your loyalty is like the morning mist
and like the early dew that vanishes.

For I am like a lion to Ephraim
and like a young lion to the house of Judah.
Yes, I will tear them to pieces and depart.
I will carry them off,
and no one can rescue them.

So I am like rot to Ephraim
and like decay to the house of Judah.

Israel will not return to the land of Egypt
and Assyria will be his king,
because they refused to repent.

The calf itself will be taken to Assyria
as an offering to the great king.
Ephraim will experience shame;
Israel will be ashamed of its counsel.

Hear this, priests!
Pay attention, house of Israel!
Listen, royal house!
For the judgment applies to you
because you have been a snare at Mizpah
and a net spread out on Tabor.

But let no one dispute; let no one argue,
for My case is against you priests.

A sword will whirl through his cities;
it will destroy and devour the bars of his gates,
because of their schemes.

Samaria’s king will disappear
like foam on the surface of the water.

A wind with its wings will carry them off,
and they will be ashamed of their sacrifices.

>

I will ransom them from the power of Sheol.
I will redeem them from death.
Death, where are your barbs?
Sheol, where is your sting?
Compassion is hidden from My eyes.

I will discipline them at My discretion;
nations will be gathered against them
to put them in bondage
for their two crimes.

So I bought her for 15 shekels of silver and five bushels of barley.

I said to her, “You must live with me many days. Don’t be promiscuous or belong to any man, and I will act the same way toward you.”

This is why I have used the prophets
to cut them down;
I have killed them with the words of My mouth.
My judgment strikes like lightning.

The word of the Lord that came to Hosea son of Beeri during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and of Jeroboam son of Jehoash, king of Israel.

Israel, do not rejoice jubilantly as the nations do,
for you have acted promiscuously, leaving your God.
You have loved the wages of a prostitute
on every grain-threshing floor.

They have installed kings,
but not through Me.
They have appointed leaders,
but without My approval.
They make their silver and gold
into idols for themselves
for their own destruction.

I trained and strengthened their arms,
but they plot evil against Me.

when I heal Israel,
the sins of Ephraim and the crimes of Samaria
will be exposed.
For they practice fraud;
a thief breaks in;
a raiding party pillages outside.

Let us strive to know the Lord.
His appearance is as sure as the dawn.
He will come to us like the rain,
like the spring showers that water the land.

Israel’s arrogance testifies against them.
Both Israel and Ephraim stumble
because of their wickedness;
even Judah will stumble with them.

Your calf-idol is rejected, Samaria.
My anger burns against them.
How long will they be incapable of innocence?

They turn, but not to what is above;
they are like a faulty bow.
Their leaders will fall by the sword
because of the cursing of their tongue.
They will be ridiculed for this in the land of Egypt.

Their actions do not allow them
to return to their God,
for a spirit of promiscuity is among them,
and they do not know the Lord.

I will heal their apostasy;
I will freely love them,
for My anger will have turned from him.

I know Ephraim,
and Israel is not hidden from Me.
For now, Ephraim,
you have acted promiscuously;
Israel is defiled.

All of them commit adultery;
they are like an oven heated by a baker
who stops stirring the fire
from the kneading of the dough until it is leavened.

Israel is swallowed up!
Now they are among the nations
like discarded pottery.

Rebels are deeply involved in slaughter;
I will be a punishment for all of them.

The days of punishment have come;
the days of retribution have come.
Let Israel recognize it!
The prophet is a fool,
and the inspired man is insane,
because of the magnitude
of your guilt and hostility.

Yet the number of the Israelites
will be like the sand of the sea,
which cannot be measured or counted.
And in the place where they were told:
You are not My people,
they will be called: Sons of the living God.

For this thing is from Israel—
a craftsman made it, and it is not God.
The calf of Samaria will be smashed to bits!

Israel cries out to Me,
“My God, we know You!”

Sow righteousness for yourselves
and reap faithful love;
break up your unplowed ground.
It is time to seek the Lord
until He comes and sends righteousness
on you like the rain.

Take words of repentance with you
and return to the Lord.
Say to Him: “Forgive all our sin
and accept what is good,
so that we may repay You
with praise from our lips.

On the day of our king,
the princes are sick with the heat of wine—
there is a conspiracy with traitors.

Israel has rejected what is good;
an enemy will pursue him.

All of them are as hot as an oven,
and they consume their rulers.
All their kings fall;
not one of them calls on Me.

Israel, return to Yahweh your God,
for you have stumbled in your sin.

But they never consider that I remember all their evil.
Now their sins are all around them;
they are right in front of My face.

They please the king with their evil,
the princes with their lies.

For they—their hearts like an oven—
draw him into their oven.
Their anger smolders all night;
in the morning it blazes like a flaming fire.

They have deeply corrupted themselves
as in the days of Gibeah.
He will remember their guilt;
He will punish their sins.

I have been Yahweh your God
ever since the land of Egypt;
you know no God but Me,
and no Savior exists besides Me.

He will revive us after two days,
and on the third day He will raise us up
so we can live in His presence.

They will not stay in the land of the Lord.
Instead, Ephraim will return to Egypt,
and they will eat unclean food in Assyria.

For the Israelites must live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar, and without ephod or household idols.

For even if they flee from devastation,
Egypt will gather them, and Memphis will bury them.
Thistles will take possession of their precious silver;
thorns will invade their tents.

Ephraim’s watchman is with my God.
The prophet encounters a fowler’s snare
on all his ways.
Hostility is in the house of his God!

Threshing floor and wine vat will not sustain them,
and the new wine will fail them.

They will not pour out
their wine offerings to the Lord,
and their sacrifices will not please Him.
Their food will be like the bread of mourners;
all who eat it become defiled.
For their bread will be for their appetites alone;
it will not enter the house of the Lord.

Let whoever is wise understand these things,
and whoever is insightful recognize them.
For the ways of the Lord are right,
and the righteous walk in them,
but the rebellious stumble in them.

What will you do on a festival day,
on the day of the Lord’s feast?

I will be like the dew to Israel;
he will blossom like the lily
and take root like the cedars of Lebanon.

Therefore, I am going to persuade her,
lead her to the wilderness,
and speak tenderly to her.

Samaria will bear her guilt
because she has rebelled against her God.
They will fall by the sword;
their little ones will be dashed to pieces,
and their pregnant women ripped open.

Ephraim, why should I have anything more
to do with idols?
It is I who answer and watch over him.
I am like a flourishing pine tree;
your fruit comes from Me.

I will take you to be My wife forever.
I will take you to be My wife in righteousness,
justice, love, and compassion.

I will attack them
like a bear robbed of her cubs
and tear open the rib cage over their hearts.
I will devour them there like a lioness,
like a wild beast that would rip them open.

In that day—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
you will call Me, “My husband,”
and no longer call Me, “My Baal.”

Assyria will not save us,
we will not ride on horses,
and we will no longer proclaim, ‘Our gods!’
to the work of our hands.
For the fatherless receives compassion in You.”

Then the Lord said to me, “Go again; show love to a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, just as the Lord loves the Israelites though they turn to other gods and love raisin cakes.”

When Ephraim spoke, there was trembling;
he was exalted in Israel.
But he incurred guilt through Baal and died.

His new branches will spread,
and his splendor will be like the olive tree,
his fragrance, like the forest of Lebanon.

I will destroy you, Israel;
you have no help but Me.

Now they continue to sin
and make themselves a cast image,
idols skillfully made from their silver,
all of them the work of craftsmen.
People say about them,
“Let the men who sacrifice kiss the calves.”

The people will return and live beneath his shade.
They will grow grain
and blossom like the vine.
His renown will be like the wine of Lebanon.

Therefore, they will be like the morning mist,
like the early dew that vanishes,
like chaff blown from a threshing floor,
or like smoke from a window.

I give you a king in My anger
and take away a king in My wrath.

When they had pasture,
they became satisfied;
they were satisfied,
and their hearts became proud.
Therefore they forgot Me.

Labor pains come on him.
He is not a wise son;
when the time comes,
he will not be born.

I knew you in the wilderness,
in the land of drought.

Where now is your king,
that he may save you in all your cities,
and the rulers you demanded, saying,
“Give me a king and leaders”?

So I will be like a lion to them;
I will lurk like a leopard on the path.

Ephraim’s guilt is preserved;
his sin is stored up.