Hosea 5-9

Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

5 Hear this, O you priests! And listen, O house of Israel! And give ear, O house of the king! For the judgment pronounced pertains to you and is meant for you, because you have been a snare at Mizpah and a net spread upon Tabor [military strongholds on either side of the Jordan River].

² The revolters are deeply sunk in corruption and slaughter, but I [the Lord God] am a rebuke and a chastisement for them all.

³ I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hid from Me; for now, O Ephraim, you have played the harlot and have worshiped idols; Israel is defiled.

⁴ Their doings will not permit them to return to their God, for the spirit of harlotry is within them and they know not the Lord [they do not recognize, appreciate, give heed to, or cherish the Lord].

⁵ But the pride and self-reliance of Israel testifies before his [own] face. Therefore shall [all] Israel, and [especially] Ephraim [the northern ten tribes], totter and fall in their iniquity and guilt, and Judah shall stumble and fall with them.

⁶ They shall go with their flocks and with their herds to seek the Lord [inquiring for and requiring Him], but they will not find Him; He has withdrawn Himself from them.

⁷ They have dealt faithlessly and treacherously with the Lord [their espoused Husband], for they have borne alien children. Now shall a [single] New Moon (one month) devour them with their fields.

⁸ Blow the horn in Gibeah and the trumpet in Ramah [both lofty hills on Benjamin’s northern border]. Sound the alarm at Beth-aven: [the enemy is] behind you and after you, O Benjamin [be on your guard]!

⁹ Ephraim shall become a desolation in the day of rebuke and punishment. Among the tribes of Israel I declare what shall surely be.

¹⁰ The princes of Judah are like those who remove the landmark [the barrier between right and wrong]; I will pour out My wrath upon them like water.^(A)

¹¹ Ephraim is oppressed; he is broken and crushed by [divine] judgment, because he was content to walk after idols (images) and man’s [evil] command ^[a](vanities and filth).

¹² Therefore I am like a moth to Ephraim and like dry rot to the house of Judah [in My judgment against them].

¹³ When Ephraim saw his sickness and Judah saw his wound, then Ephraim went to Assyria and sent to [Assyria’s] great King Jareb [for help]. Yet he cannot heal you nor will he cure you of your wound [received in divine judgment].

¹⁴ For I will be to Ephraim like a lion, and like a young lion to the house of Judah. I, even I, will rend and go on [rending]; I will carry off and there will be no one to deliver.

¹⁵ I will return to My place [on high] until they acknowledge their offense and feel their guilt and seek My face; in their affliction and distress they will seek, inquire for, and require Me earnestly, saying,

6 Come and let us return to the Lord, for He has torn so that He may heal us; He has stricken so that He may bind us up.

² After two days He will revive us (quicken us, give us life); on the third day He will raise us up that we may live before Him.^(B)

³ Yes, let us know (recognize, be acquainted with, and understand) Him; let us be zealous to know the Lord [to appreciate, give heed to, and cherish Him]. His going forth is prepared and certain as the dawn, and He will come to us as the [heavy] rain, as the latter rain that waters the earth.

⁴ O Ephraim, what shall I do with you? [says the Lord] O Judah, what shall I do with you? For your [wavering] love and kindness are like the night mist or like the dew that goes early away.

⁵ Therefore have I hewn down and smitten them by means of the prophets; I have slain them by the words of My mouth; My judgments [pronounced upon them by you prophets] are like the light that goes forth.

⁶ For I desire and delight in dutiful steadfast love and goodness, not sacrifice, and the knowledge of and acquaintance with God more than burnt offerings.^(C)

⁷ But they, like [less-privileged] men and like Adam, have transgressed the covenant; there have they dealt faithlessly and treacherously with Me.

⁸ Gilead is a city of evildoers; it is tracked with bloody [footprints].

⁹ And as troops of robbers lie in wait for a man, so the company of priests murder on the road toward Shechem; yes, they commit villainy and outrages.

¹⁰ I have seen a horrible thing in the house of Israel! There harlotry and idolatry are found in Ephraim; Israel is defiled.

¹¹ Also, O Judah, there is a harvest [of divine judgment] appointed for you; when I would return My people from their captivity [in which they are slaves to the misery brought on by their own sins],

7 When I would heal Israel, then Ephraim’s guilt is uncovered, and the wickedness of Samaria; how they practice falsehood, and the thief enters and the troop of bandits ravage and raid without.

² But they do not consider and say to their minds and hearts that I [earnestly] remember all their wickedness. Now their own doings surround and entangle them; they are before My face.

³ They make the king glad with their wickedness, and the princes with their lies.

⁴ They are all [idolatrous] adulterers; their passion smolders like heat of an oven when the baker ceases to stir the fire from the kneading of the dough until it is leavened.

⁵ On the [special] day of our king the princes made themselves and him sick with the heat of wine; [the king] stretched out his hand with scoffers and lawless men.

⁶ For they have made ready their heart, and their mind burns [with intrigue] like an oven while they lie in wait. Their anger smolders all night; in the morning it blazes forth as a flaming fire.

⁷ They are all hot as an oven and devour their judges; all their kings are fallen; there is none among them who calls to Me.

⁸ Ephraim mixes himself among the peoples [courting the favor of first one country, then another]; Ephraim is a cake not turned.

⁹ Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knows it not; yes, gray hairs are sprinkled here and there upon him, and he does not know it.

¹⁰ And the pride of Israel testifies against him and to his face. But they do not return to the Lord their God, nor seek nor inquire of nor require Him in spite of all this.

¹¹ Ephraim also is like a silly dove without heart or understanding; they call to Egypt; they go to Assyria.

¹² As they go, I will spread My net over them; I will bring them down like birds of the heavens. I will chastise them according to the announcement [or prediction made] to their congregation [in the Scriptures].^(D)

¹³ Woe to them, for they have wandered from Me! Destruction to them, because they have rebelled and trespassed against Me! Though I would redeem them, yet they have spoken lies against Me.

¹⁴ They do not cry to Me from their heart, but they wail upon their beds; they gash and distress and assemble themselves [in mourning] for grain and new wine; they rebel against Me.

¹⁵ Although I have chastened them and trained and strengthened their arms, yet they think and devise evil against Me.

¹⁶ They turn back, shift, or change, but not upwards [to the Most High]. They are like a deceitful bow; their princes shall fall by the sword for the insolence and rage of their tongue. This shall be [cause for] their derision and scorning in the land of Egypt.

8 Set the trumpet to your lips! [The enemy] comes as a [great] vulture against the house of the Lord, because they have broken My covenant and transgressed against My law.

² Then they will cry to Me, My God, we [of Israel] know You!

³ Israel has rejected the good [with loathing]; the enemy shall pursue him.

⁴ They set up kings, but not from Me [therefore without My blessing]; they have made princes or removed them [without consulting Me; therefore], I knew and recognized [them] not. With their silver and their gold they made idols for themselves, that they [the silver and the gold] may be destroyed.

⁵ Your calf [idol], O Samaria, is loathsome and I have spurned it. My wrath burns against them. How long will it be before they attain purity?

⁶ For this [calf] too is from Israel; a craftsman made it; therefore it is not God. The calf of Samaria shall be broken to shivers and go up in flames.

⁷ For they sow the wind and they shall reap the whirlwind. The standing grain has no heads; it shall yield no meal; if it were to yield, strangers and aliens would eat it up.

⁸ Israel is [as if] swallowed up. Already they have become among the nations as a vessel [of cheap, coarse pottery] that is useless.

⁹ For they are gone up to Assyria, a wild ass taking her own way by herself; Ephraim has hired lovers.

¹⁰ Yes, though with presents they hire [allies] among the nations, now will I gather them up, and in a little while they will sorrow and begin to diminish [their gifts] because of the burden (tribute) imposed by the king of princes [the king of Assyria].

¹¹ For Ephraim has multiplied altars for sinning; yes, to him altars are intended for sinning.

¹² I wrote for him the ten thousand things of My law, but they are counted as a strange thing [as something which does not concern him].

¹³ My sacrificial gifts they sacrifice [as a mere form]; yes, they sacrifice flesh and eat it, but the Lord does not accept them. Now He will [earnestly] remember their guilt and iniquity and will punish their sins. They shall return to [another] Egypt [Assyria].^(E)

¹⁴ For Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces and idol temples, and Judah has multiplied fortified cities; but I will send a fire upon his cities and it shall devour his palaces and fortified buildings.^(F)

9 Rejoice not, O Israel, with exultation as do the peoples, for you have played the harlot, forsaking your God. You have loved [a harlot’s] hire upon every threshing floor [ascribing the harvest to the Baals instead of to God].

² The threshing floor and the winevat shall not feed them, and the new wine shall fail them.

³ They shall not remain in the Lord’s land, but Ephraim shall return to [another] Egypt and they shall eat unclean food in Assyria.^(G)

⁴ They shall not pour out wine offerings to the Lord, neither shall they be pleasing to Him. Their sacrifices shall be to them as the bread of mourners; all who eat of them shall be defiled, for their bread shall be [only] for their appetite; it shall not come into the house of the Lord [to be offered first to Him].

⁵ What will you do on the day of the appointed solemn assembly or festival and on the day of the feast of the Lord [when you are in exile]?

⁶ For behold, they are gone away from devastation and destruction; Egypt shall gather them in; Memphis shall bury them. Their precious things of silver shall be in the possession of nettles; thorns shall be [growing] in their tents.

⁷ The days of visitation and punishment have come; the days of recompense have come; Israel shall know it. The prophet is [considered] a crazed fool and the man who is inspired is [treated as if] mad or a fanatic, because of the abundance of your iniquity and because the enmity, hostility, and persecution are great.^(H)

⁸ Ephraim was [intended to be] a watchman with my God [and a prophet to the surrounding nations]; but he, that prophet, has become a fowler’s snare in all his ways. There is enmity, hostility, and persecution in the house of his God.

⁹ They have deeply corrupted themselves as in the days of Gibeah. The Lord will [earnestly] remember their iniquity; He will punish their sins.^(I)

¹⁰ I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness; I saw your fathers as the first ripe fruit on the fig tree in its first season, but they went to Baal-peor and consecrated themselves to that shameful thing [Baal], and they became detestable and loathsome like that which they loved.

¹¹ As for Ephraim, their glory shall fly away like a bird; there shall be no birth, no being with child, and [because of their impurity] no becoming pregnant.

¹² Though they bring up their children, yet will I bereave them so that not a man shall be left; yes, woe also to them when I look away and depart from them!

¹³ Ephraim, as I have seen with Tyre, is planted in a pleasant place, but Ephraim shall bring out his children to the slayer.

¹⁴ Give them [their due], O Lord! [But] what will You give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.

¹⁵ All their wickedness [says the Lord] is focused in Gilgal, for there I hated them; for the wickedness of their [idolatrous] doings I will drive them out of My house [the Holy Land]; I will love them no more; all their princes are rebels.^(J)

¹⁶ Ephraim is smitten, their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit. Yes, though they bring forth, yet will I slay even their beloved children.

¹⁷ My God will cast them away because they did not listen to and obey Him, and they shall be wanderers and fugitives among the nations.