The word of the Lord which came to Hosea the son of Beeri, during the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and during the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.

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

When she had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she conceived and gave birth to a son.

They feed on the sin of My people
And direct their desire toward their iniquity.

In the house of Israel I have seen a horrible thing;
Ephraim’s harlotry is there, Israel has defiled itself.

Since Ephraim has multiplied altars for sin,
They have become altars of sinning for him.

Ephraim, as I have seen,
Is planted in a pleasant meadow like Tyre;
But Ephraim will bring out his children for slaughter.

Also the high places of Aven, the sin of Israel, will be destroyed;
Thorn and thistle will grow on their altars;
Then they will say to the mountains,
“Cover us!” And to the hills, “Fall on us!”

When Israel was a youth I loved him,
And out of Egypt I called My son.

And Ephraim said, “Surely I have become rich,
I have found wealth for myself;
In all my labors they will find in me
No iniquity, which would be sin.”

And now they sin more and more,
And make for themselves molten images,
Idols skillfully made from their silver,
All of them the work of craftsmen.
They say of them, “Let the men who 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 stored up.

The pains of childbirth come upon him;
He is not a wise son,
For it is not the time that he should delay at the opening of the womb.