The word of the LORD that came unto Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.

So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; which conceived, and bare him a son.

Now when she had weaned Loruhamah, she conceived, and bare a son.

Therefore, I will soon fence her in with thorns; I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way.

Soon I will expose her lewd nakedness in front of her lovers, and no one will be able to rescue her from me!

When they became many, their sin increased against me; they changed their glory into shame.

They eat up the sin of my people, and they set their heart on their iniquity.

Israel has rebelled like a stubborn heifer! Soon the Lord will put them out to pasture like a lamb in a broad field!

The wind [of God’s relentless wrath] has wrapped up Israel in its wings,
And [in captivity] they will be ashamed because of their sacrifices [to calves, to sun, to moon, to stars, and to pagan gods].

They have committed treason against the Lord, because they bore illegitimate children. Soon the new moon festival will devour them and their fields.

Let us acknowledge Yahweh. Let us press on to know Yahweh. As surely as the sun rises, Yahweh will appear. He will come to us like the rain, like the spring rain that waters the earth."

I have seen an horrible thing in the house of Israel: there is the whoredom of Ephraim, Israel is defiled.

When my desire was for the fate of my people to be changed and to make Israel well, then the sin of Ephraim was made clear, and the evil-doing of Samaria; for their ways are false, and the thief comes into the house, while the band of outlaws takes property by force in the streets.

And they do not say to themselves that I keep in mind all their sin; now their evil acts come round them on every side; they are before my face.

In their sin they make a king for themselves, and rulers in their deceit.

When they go, my net will be stretched out over them; I will take them like the birds of heaven, I will give them punishment, I will take them away in the net for their sin.

For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk: the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up.

Even though they have sold themselves to the nations, now I will gather them. They will soon writhe from the burden of kings and princes.

Because Ephraim hath made many altars to sin, altars shall be unto him to sin.

The sacrifices of Mine offerings! They sacrifice flesh, and they eat, Jehovah hath not accepted them, Now doth He remember their iniquity, And inspect their sin, They -- to Egypt they turn back.

The days of punishment have come; the days of retribution have come; Israel knows! The prophet [is] a fool, the man of the spirit [is] acting like a madman. Because of the greatness of your sin, [your] hostility [is] great.

{They deeply corrupted themselves} as [in] the days of Gibeah; he will remember their sin, he will punish their sins.

As grapes in a wilderness I found Israel, As the first-fruit in a fig-tree, at its beginning, I have seen your fathers, They -- they have gone in to Baal-Peor, And are separated to a shameful thing, And are become abominable like their love.

Ephraim, like as I have seen Tyre, is planted in a pleasant place: but Ephraim shall bring out his children to the slayer.

Their heart is slipping; soon they will be punished for their guilt. The Lord will break their altars; he will completely destroy their fertility pillars.

Very soon they will say, "We have no king since we did not fear the Lord. But what can a king do for us anyway?"

The high places also of Aven, the sin of Israel, shall be destroyed: the thorn and the thistle shall come up on their altars; and they shall say to the mountains, Cover us; and to the hills, Fall on us.

From the days of the hill thou didst sin, O Israel: there they stood: the battle in the hill against the sons of iniquity shall not overtake them.

You have been ploughing sin, you have got in a store of evil, the fruit of deceit has been your food: for you put faith in your way, in the number of your men of war.

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

And Ephraim said, Yet I am become rich, I have found me out substance: in all my labours they shall find none iniquity in me that were sin.

And now they sin more and more, and have made them molten images of their silver, and idols according to their own understanding, all of it the work of the craftsmen: they say of them, Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves.

Therefore they will be like the morning cloud
And like dew which soon disappears,
Like chaff which is blown away from the threshing floor
And like smoke from a chimney.

The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up; his sin is hid.

The sorrows of a travailing woman shall come upon him: he is an unwise son; for he should not stay long in the place of the breaking forth of children.

Return to Yahweh your God, Israel, for you have stumbled because of your sin.

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.