They make many promises,
    take false oaths(A)
    and make agreements;(B)
therefore lawsuits spring up
    like poisonous weeds(C) in a plowed field.

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They have spoken words,
Swearing falsely in making a covenant.
Thus judgment springs up (A)like hemlock in the furrows of the field.

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They utter (A)mere words;
    with empty[a] oaths they make covenants;
so (B)judgment springs up like poisonous weeds
    (C)in the furrows of the field.

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Footnotes

  1. Hosea 10:4 Or vain (see Exodus 20:7)

They make promises,
    swear false oaths, and make covenants,
While lawsuits sprout
    like poisonous weeds[a] in the furrows of a field!

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Footnotes

  1. 10:4 Lawsuits…like poisonous weeds: the administration of justice, which should have been the mainstay of the people, has in corrupt hands become another instrument of oppression; cf. Am 6:12.