Hosea 6:4-Hosea 7:2 - The Lord's First Lament

⁴ What am I going to do with you, O Ephraim? What am I going to do with you, O Judah? For your faithfulness is as fleeting as the morning mist; it disappears as quickly as dawn's dew! ⁵ Therefore, I will certainly cut you into pieces at the hands of the prophets; I will certainly kill you in fulfillment of my oracles of judgment; for my judgment will come forth like the light of the dawn. ⁶ For I delight in faithfulness, not simply in sacrifice; I delight in acknowledging God, not simply in whole burnt offerings.

⁷ At Adam they broke the covenant; Oh how they were unfaithful to me! ⁸ Gilead is a city full of evildoers; its streets are stained with bloody footprints! ⁹ The company of priests is like a gang of robbers, lying in ambush to pounce on a victim. They commit murder on the road to Shechem; they have done heinous crimes! ¹⁰ I have seen a disgusting thing in the temple of Israel: there Ephraim practices temple prostitution and Judah defiles itself. ¹¹ Whenever I want to restore the fortunes of my people,

¹ whenever I want to heal Israel, the sin of Ephraim is revealed, and the evil deeds of Samaria are exposed. For they do what is wrong; thieves break into houses, and gangs rob people out in the streets. ² They do not realize that I remember all of their wicked deeds. Their evil deeds have now surrounded them; their sinful deeds are always before me.