Hosea 9
New Living Translation
Hosea Announces Israel’s Punishment
9 O people of Israel,
do not rejoice as other nations do.
For you have been unfaithful to your God,
hiring yourselves out like prostitutes,
worshiping other gods on every threshing floor.
2 So now your harvests will be too small to feed you.
There will be no grapes for making new wine.
3 You may no longer stay here in the Lord’s land.
Instead, you will return to Egypt,
and in Assyria you will eat food
that is ceremonially unclean.
4 There you will make no offerings of wine to the Lord.
None of your sacrifices there will please him.
They will be unclean, like food touched by a person in mourning.
All who present such sacrifices will be defiled.
They may eat this food themselves,
but they may not offer it to the Lord.
5 What then will you do on festival days?
How will you observe the Lord’s festivals?
6 Even if you escape destruction from Assyria,
Egypt will conquer you, and Memphis[a] will bury you.
Nettles will take over your treasures of silver;
thistles will invade your ruined homes.
7 The time of Israel’s punishment has come;
the day of payment is here.
Soon Israel will know this all too well.
Because of your great sin and hostility,
you say, “The prophets are crazy
and the inspired men are fools!”
8 The prophet is a watchman over Israel[b] for my God,
yet traps are laid for him wherever he goes.
He faces hostility even in the house of God.
9 The things my people do are as depraved
as what they did in Gibeah long ago.
God will not forget.
He will surely punish them for their sins.
10 The Lord says, “O Israel, when I first found you,
it was like finding fresh grapes in the desert.
When I saw your ancestors,
it was like seeing the first ripe figs of the season.
But then they deserted me for Baal-peor,
giving themselves to that shameful idol.
Soon they became vile,
as vile as the god they worshiped.
11 The glory of Israel will fly away like a bird,
for your children will not be born
or grow in the womb
or even be conceived.
12 Even if you do have children who grow up,
I will take them from you.
It will be a terrible day when I turn away
and leave you alone.
13 I have watched Israel become as beautiful as Tyre.
But now Israel will bring out her children for slaughter.”
14 O Lord, what should I request for your people?
I will ask for wombs that don’t give birth
and breasts that give no milk.
15 The Lord says, “All their wickedness began at Gilgal;
there I began to hate them.
I will drive them from my land
because of their evil actions.
I will love them no more
because all their leaders are rebels.
16 The people of Israel are struck down.
Their roots are dried up,
and they will bear no more fruit.
And if they give birth,
I will slaughter their beloved children.”
17 My God will reject the people of Israel
because they will not listen or obey.
They will be wanderers,
homeless among the nations.
Hosea 9
International Standard Version
Punishment for Israel
9 “Don’t celebrate, Israel, like other nations would rejoice,
because you left your God by committing fornication,
loving the profit you gained on all of the threshing floors.
2 Neither threshing floor nor winepress will sustain them,
and the new wine will disappoint her.
3 They will not live in the Lord’s land—
Ephraim will return to Egypt,
and they will eat unclean food in Assyria.
4 They won’t present wine offerings to the Lord,
nor will they please him.
Their sacrifices will seem like food for mourners—
everyone who eats them will become unclean;
none of them will enter the Temple of the Lord.
5 “What will you do on the designated holiday,
when the Lord’s festival comes?
6 Look! They have gone away because of the destruction—
Egypt will gather them up,
and Memphis[a] will bury them.
Weeds will overgrow their inheritance,[b]
and thorns will grow[c] in their tents.
7 The time for your judgment has now come;
payday is here—
and Israel knows it.
The prophet is a fool,
and the spiritual man is insane.
Because of your great sin,
the hatred against you[d] is great.
8 While Ephraim stands watch with my God,
the prophet has snares set that will trap his ways,
and hostility lodges in the Temple of his God.
9 They have corrupted themselves deeply,
as did Gibeah[e] in its day.
Therefore God[f] will remember their lawlessness,
and he will pay them back for their sins.
10 “I found Israel,
as one finds[g] grapes in the wilderness;
Your ancestors seemed to me like the fruit
gleaned from a fig tree’s first harvest.
When they went to Baal-peor,[h]
they devoted themselves to that filth,
and they became loathsome,
like what they loved.
11 The glory of Ephraim will fly away like a bird—
no birth, no pregnancy, not even a conception.
12 Even if they rear their children,
I will, in turn, make them childless—
in fact, woe to them
when I turn away from them!
13 Ephraim, as I see it, is like Tyre,
planted in a comfortable place;
Ephraim will bear children
but they will be executed.”
14 Give them, Lord—
What will you give?
You will give them a womb that miscarries and dry breasts.
15 “All of their wickedness started[i] in Gilgal,
because I began to hate them there.
Because of the wickedness of their behavior,
I will drive them from my Temple.
I will not love them anymore;
all their leaders are rebels.
16 Ephraim is blighted;[j]
its roots shriveled.
It can bear no fruit.
Even if they bear children,
I will kill their cherished offspring.
17 “My God will reject them,
because they did not obey him,
and they will become wanderers among the nations.”
Footnotes
- Hosea 9:6 So LXX. Heb. Moph; i.e. the capital of Lower Egypt
- Hosea 9:6 Lit. their precious silver
- Hosea 9:6 Lit. be
- Hosea 9:7 The Heb. lacks against you
- Hosea 9:9 Cf. Judg 19:1
- Hosea 9:9 Lit. he
- Hosea 9:10 The Heb. lacks finds
- Hosea 9:10 Cf. Num 25:1-3
- Hosea 9:15 The Heb. lacks started
- Hosea 9:16 Or stricken
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
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