Hosea 1-14

Living Bible

1 These are the messages from the Lord to Hosea, son of Beeri, during the reigns of these four kings of Judah:

Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah; and one of the kings of Israel, Jeroboam, son of Joash.

² Here is the first message:

The Lord said to Hosea, “Go and marry a girl who is a prostitute, so that some of her children will be born to you from other men. This will illustrate the way my people have been untrue to me, committing open adultery against me by worshiping other gods.”

³ So Hosea married Gomer, daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.

^4-5 And the Lord said, “Name the child Jezreel, for in the valley of Jezreel I am about to punish King Jehu’s dynasty to avenge the murders he committed;^[a] in fact, I will put an end to Israel as an independent kingdom, breaking the power of the nation in the valley of Jezreel.”

⁶ Soon Gomer had another child—this one a daughter. And God said to Hosea, “Name her Lo-ruhamah (meaning ‘No more mercy’) for I will have no more mercy upon Israel, to forgive her again. ⁷ But I will have mercy on the tribe of Judah. I will personally free her from her enemies without any help from her armies or her weapons.”^[b]

⁸ After Gomer had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she again conceived and this time gave birth to a son. ⁹ And God said, “Call him Lo-ammi (meaning ‘Not mine’), for Israel is not mine and I am not her God.

¹⁰ “Yet the time will come when Israel shall prosper and become a great nation; in that day her people will be too numerous to count—like sand along a seashore! Then, instead of saying to them, ‘You are not my people,’ I will tell them, ‘You are my sons, children of the Living God.’ ¹¹ Then the people of Judah and Israel will unite and have one leader; they will return from exile together; what a day that will be—the day when God will sow his people in the fertile soil of their own land again.^[c]

2 “O Jezreel,^[d] rename your brother and sister. Call your brother Ammi (which means ‘Now you are mine’); name your sister Ruhamah (‘Pitied’), for now God will have mercy upon her!

² “Plead with your mother, for she has become another man’s wife—I am no longer her husband. Beg her to stop her harlotry, to quit giving herself to others. ³ If she doesn’t, I will strip her as naked as the day she was born and cause her to waste away and die of thirst as in a land riddled with famine and drought. ⁴ And I will not give special favors to her children as I would to my own, for they are not my children; they belong to other men.

⁵ “For their mother has committed adultery. She did a shameful thing when she said, ‘I’ll run after other men and sell myself to them for food and drinks and clothes.’

⁶ “But I will fence her in with briars and thornbushes; I’ll block the road before her to make her lose her way, so that ⁷ when she runs after her lovers, she will not catch up with them. She will search for them but not find them. Then she will think, ‘I might as well return to my husband, for I was better off with him than I am now.’

⁸ “She doesn’t realize that all she has, has come from me. It was I who gave her all the gold and silver she used in worshiping Baal, her god!

⁹ “But now I will take back the wine and ripened corn I constantly supplied, and the clothes I gave her to cover her nakedness—I will no longer give her rich harvests of grain in its season or wine at the time of the grape harvest. ¹⁰ Now I will expose her nakedness in public for all her lovers to see, and no one will be able to rescue her from my hand.

¹¹ “I will put an end to all her joys, her parties, holidays, and feasts. ¹² I will destroy her vineyards and her orchards—gifts she claims her lovers gave her—and let them grow into a jungle; wild animals will eat their fruit.

¹³ “For all the incense she burned to Baal her idol and for the times when she put on her earrings and jewels and went out looking for her lovers and deserted me—for all these things I will punish her,” says the Lord.

¹⁴ “But I will court her again and bring her into the wilderness, and I will speak to her tenderly there. ¹⁵ There I will give back her vineyards to her and transform her Valley of Troubles into a Door of Hope. She will respond to me there, singing with joy as in days long ago in her youth after I had freed her from captivity in Egypt.

¹⁶ “In that coming day,” says the Lord, “she will call me ‘My Husband’ instead of ‘My Master.’^{[e] 17} O Israel, I will cause you to forget your idols, and their names will not be spoken anymore.

¹⁸ “At that time I will make a treaty between you and the wild animals, birds, and snakes, not to fear each other anymore; and I will destroy all weapons, and all wars will end.

“Then you will lie down in peace and safety, unafraid; ¹⁹ and I will bind you to me forever with chains of righteousness and justice and love and mercy. ²⁰ I will betroth you to me in faithfulness and love, and you will really know me then as you never have before.

^21-22 “In that day,” says the Lord, “I will answer the pleading of the sky for clouds, to pour down water on the earth in answer to its cry for rain. Then the earth can answer the parched cry of the grain, the grapes, and the olive trees for moisture and for dew—and the whole grand chorus shall sing together that ‘God sows!’^[f] He has given all!

²³ “At that time I will sow a crop of Israelites and raise them for myself! I will pity those who are ‘not pitied,’^[g] and I will say to those who are ‘not my people,’ ‘Now you are my people’; and they will reply, ‘You are our God!’”

3 Then the Lord said to me, “Go, and get your wife again and bring her back to you and love her, even though she loves adultery. For the Lord still loves Israel though she has turned to other gods and offered them choice gifts.”

² So I bought her back from her slavery^[h] for a couple of dollars and eight bushels of barley, ³ and I said to her, “You must live alone for many days; do not go out with other men nor be a prostitute, and I will wait for you.”

⁴ This illustrates the fact that Israel will be a long time without a king or prince, and without an altar, Temple, priests, or even idols!

⁵ Afterward they will return to the Lord their God and to the Messiah, their King,^[i] and they shall come trembling, submissive to the Lord and to his blessings in the end times.

4 Hear the word of the Lord, O people of Israel. The Lord has filed a lawsuit against you listing the following charges: “There is no faithfulness, no kindness, no knowledge of God in your land. ² You swear and lie and kill and steal and commit adultery. There is violence everywhere, with one murder after another.

³ “That is why your land is not producing; it is filled with sadness, and all living things grow sick and die; the animals, the birds, and even the fish begin to disappear.

⁴ “Don’t point your finger at someone else and try to pass the blame to him! Look, priest, I am pointing my finger at you. ⁵ As a sentence for your crimes, you priests will stumble in broad daylight as well as in the night, and so will your false ‘prophets’ too; and I will destroy your mother, Israel. ⁶ My people are destroyed because they don’t know me, and it is all your fault, you priests, for you yourselves refuse to know me; therefore, I refuse to recognize you as my priests. Since you have forgotten my laws, I will ‘forget’ to bless your children. ⁷ The more my people multiplied, the more they sinned against me. They exchanged the glory of God for the disgrace of idols.

⁸ “The priests rejoice in the sins of the people; they lap it up and lick their lips for more! ⁹ And thus it is: ‘Like priests, like people’—because the priests are wicked, the people are too. Therefore, I will punish both priests and people for all their wicked deeds. ¹⁰ They will eat and still be hungry. Though they do a big business as prostitutes, they shall have no children, for they have deserted me and turned to other gods.

¹¹ “Wine, women, and song have robbed my people of their brains. ¹² For they are asking a piece of wood to tell them what to do. ‘Divine Truth’ comes to them through tea leaves!^[j] Longing after idols has made them foolish. For they have played the harlot, serving other gods, deserting me. ¹³ They sacrifice to idols on the tops of mountains; they go up into the hills to burn incense in the pleasant shade of oaks and poplars and sumac trees.

“There your daughters turn to prostitution and your brides commit adultery. ¹⁴ But why should I punish them? For you men are doing the same thing, sinning with harlots and temple prostitutes. Fools! Your doom is sealed, for you refuse to understand.

¹⁵ “But though Israel is a prostitute, may Judah stay far from such a life. O Judah, do not join with those who insincerely worship me at Gilgal and at Bethel. Their worship is mere pretense. ¹⁶ Don’t be like Israel, stubborn as a heifer, resisting the Lord’s attempts to lead her in green pastures. ¹⁷ Stay away from her, for she is wedded to idolatry.

¹⁸ “The men of Israel finish up their drinking bouts, and off they go to find some whores. Their love for shame is greater than for honor.^[k]

¹⁹ “Therefore, a mighty wind shall sweep them away;^[l] they shall die in shame because they sacrifice to idols.

5 “Listen to this, you priests and all of Israel’s leaders; listen, all you men of the royal family: You are doomed! For you have deluded the people with idols at Mizpah and Tabor ² and dug a deep pit to trap them at Acacia. But never forget—I will settle up with all of you for what you’ve done.

³ “I have seen your evil deeds: Israel, you have left me as a prostitute leaves her husband; you are utterly defiled. ⁴ Your deeds won’t let you come to God again, for the spirit of adultery is deep within you, and you cannot know the Lord.

⁵ “The very arrogance of Israel testifies against her in my court. She will stumble under her load of guilt, and Judah, too, shall fall. ⁶ Then at last, they will come with their flocks and herds to sacrifice to God, but it will be too late—they will not find him. He has withdrawn from them and they are left alone.

⁷ “For they have betrayed the honor of the Lord, bearing children that aren’t his. Suddenly they and all their wealth will disappear. ⁸ Sound the alarm! Warn with trumpet blasts in Gibeah and Ramah, and on over to Beth-aven; tremble, land of Benjamin! ⁹ Hear this announcement, Israel: When your day of punishment comes, you will become a heap of rubble.

¹⁰ “The leaders of Judah have become the lowest sort of thieves.^[m] Therefore, I will pour my anger down upon them like a waterfall, ¹¹ and Ephraim will be crushed and broken by my sentence because she is determined to follow idols. ¹² I will destroy her as a moth does wool; I will sap away the strength of Judah like dry rot.

¹³ “When Ephraim and Judah see how sick they are, Ephraim will turn to Assyria, to the great king there, but he can neither help nor cure.

¹⁴ “I will tear Ephraim and Judah as a lion rips apart its prey; I will carry them off and chase all rescuers away.

¹⁵ “I will abandon them and return to my home until they admit their guilt and look to me for help again, for as soon as trouble comes, they will search for me and say:

6 “‘Come, let us return to the Lord; it is he who has torn us—he will heal us. He has wounded—he will bind us up. ² In just a couple of days,^[n] or three at the most, he will set us on our feet again to live in his kindness! ³ Oh, that we might know the Lord! Let us press on to know him, and he will respond to us as surely as the coming of dawn or the rain of early spring.’”

⁴ “O Ephraim and Judah, what shall I do with you? For your love vanishes like morning clouds, and disappears like dew. ⁵ I sent my prophets to warn you of your doom; I have slain you with the words of my mouth, threatening you with death. Suddenly, without warning, my judgment will strike you as surely as day follows night.

⁶ “I don’t want your sacrifices—I want your love; I don’t want your offerings—I want you to know me.

⁷ “But like Adam, you broke my covenant; you refused my love. ⁸ Gilead is a city of sinners, tracked with footprints of blood. ⁹ Her citizens are gangs of robbers, lying in ambush for their victims; packs of priests murder along the road to Shechem and practice every kind of sin. ¹⁰ Yes, I have seen a horrible thing in Israel—Ephraim chasing other gods, Israel utterly defiled.

¹¹ “O Judah, for you also there is a plentiful harvest of punishment waiting—and I wanted so much to bless you!

7 “I wanted to forgive Israel, but her sins were far too great—no one can even live in Samaria without being a liar, thief, and bandit!

² “Her people never seem to recognize that I am watching them. Their sinful deeds give them away on every side; I see them all. ³ The king is glad about their wickedness; the princes laugh about their lies. ⁴ They are all adulterers; as a baker’s oven is constantly aflame—except after he kneads the dough and waits for it to rise again—so are these people constantly aflame with lust.

⁵ “On the king’s birthday, the princes get him drunk; he makes a fool of himself and drinks with those who mock him. ⁶ Their hearts blaze like a furnace with intrigue. Their plot smolders through the night, and in the morning it flames forth like raging fire.

⁷ “They kill their kings one after another,^[o] and no one cries out to me for help.

⁸ “My people mingle with the heathen, picking up their evil ways; thus they become as good-for-nothing as a half-baked cake!

⁹ “Worshiping foreign gods has sapped their strength, but they don’t know it. Ephraim’s hair is turning gray, and he doesn’t even realize how weak and old he is. ¹⁰ His pride in other gods has openly condemned him; yet he doesn’t return to his God, nor even try to find him.

¹¹ “Ephraim is a silly, witless dove, calling to Egypt, flying to Assyria. ¹² But as she flies, I throw my net over her and bring her down like a bird from the sky; I will punish her for all her evil ways.

¹³ “Woe to my people for deserting me; let them perish, for they have sinned against me. I wanted to redeem them but their hard hearts would not accept the truth. ¹⁴ They lie there sleepless with anxiety but won’t ask my help. Instead, they worship heathen gods, asking them for crops and for prosperity.

¹⁵ “I have helped them and made them strong, yet now they turn against me.

¹⁶ “They look everywhere except to heaven, to the Most High God. They are like a crooked bow that always misses targets; their leaders will perish by the sword of the enemy for their insolence to me. And all Egypt will laugh at them.

8 “Sound the alarm! They are coming! Like a vulture, the enemy descends upon the people of God because they have broken my treaty and revolted against my laws.

² “Now Israel pleads with me and says, ‘Help us, for you are our God!’ ³ But it is too late! Israel has thrown away her chance with contempt, and now her enemies will chase her. ⁴ She has appointed kings and princes, but not with my consent. They have cut themselves off from my help by worshiping the idols that they made from their silver and gold.

⁵ “O Samaria, I reject this calf—this idol you have made. My fury burns against you. How long will it be before one honest man is found among you? ⁶ When will you admit this calf you worship was made by human hands! It is not God! Therefore, it must be smashed to bits.

⁷ “They have sown the wind, and they will reap the whirlwind. Their cornstalks stand there barren, withered, sickly, with no grain; if it has any, foreigners will eat it.

⁸ “Israel is destroyed; she lies among the nations as a broken pot. ⁹ She is a lonely, wandering wild ass. The only friends she has are those she hires; Assyria is one of them.

¹⁰ “But though she hires ‘friends’ from many lands, I will send her off to exile. Then for a while at least she will be free of the burden of her wonderful king! ¹¹ Ephraim has built many altars, but they are not to worship me! They are altars of sin! ¹² Even if I gave her ten thousand laws, she’d say they weren’t for her—that they applied to someone far away. ¹³ Her people love the ritual of their sacrifice, but to me it is meaningless! I will call for an accounting of their sins and punish them; they shall return to Egypt.

¹⁴ “Israel has built great palaces; Judah has constructed great defenses for her cities, but they have forgotten their Maker. Therefore, I will send down fire upon those palaces and burn those fortresses.”

9 O Israel, rejoice no more as others do, for you have deserted your God and sacrificed to other gods on every threshing floor.

² Therefore your harvests will be small; your grapes will blight upon the vine.

³ You may no longer stay here in this land of God; you will be carried off to Egypt and Assyria and live there on scraps of food. ⁴ There, far from home, you are not allowed to pour out wine for sacrifice to God. For no sacrifice that is offered there can please him; it is polluted, just as food of mourners is; all who eat such sacrifices are defiled. They may eat this food to feed themselves, but may not offer it to God. ⁵ What then will you do on holy days, on days of feasting to the Lord, ⁶ when you are carried off to Assyria as slaves? Who will inherit your possessions left behind? Egypt will! She will gather your dead; Memphis will bury them. And thorns and thistles will grow up among the ruins.

⁷ The time of Israel’s punishment has come; the day of recompense is almost here, and soon Israel will know it all too well. “The prophets are crazy”; “The inspired men are mad.” Yes, so they mock, for the nation is weighted with sin and shows only hatred for those who love God.

⁸ “I appointed the prophets to guard my people, but the people have blocked them at every turn and publicly declared their hatred, even in the Temple of the Lord. ⁹ The things my people do are as depraved as what they did in Gibeah^[p] long ago. The Lord does not forget. He will surely punish them.

¹⁰ “O Israel, how well I remember those first delightful days when I led you through the wilderness! How refreshing was your love! How satisfying, like the early figs of summer in their first season! But then you deserted me for Baal-peor,^[q] to give yourselves to other gods, and soon you were as foul as they. ¹¹ The glory of Israel flies away like a bird, for your children will die at birth, or perish in the womb, or never even be conceived. ¹² And if your children grow, I will take them from you; all are doomed. Yes, it will be a sad day when I turn away and leave you alone.”

¹³ In my vision I have seen the sons of Israel doomed. The fathers are forced to lead their sons to slaughter. ¹⁴ O Lord, what shall I ask for your people? I will ask for wombs that don’t give birth, for breasts that cannot nourish.

¹⁵ “All their wickedness began at Gilgal;^[r] there I began to hate them. I will drive them from my land because of their idolatry. I will love them no more, for all their leaders are rebels. ¹⁶ Ephraim is doomed. The roots of Israel are dried up; she shall bear no more fruit. And if she gives birth, I will slay even her beloved child.”

¹⁷ My God will destroy the people of Israel because they will not listen or obey. They will be wandering Jews, homeless among the nations.

10 “How prosperous Israel is—a luxuriant vine all filled with fruit! But the more wealth I give her, the more she pours it on the altars of her heathen gods; the richer the harvests I give her, the more beautiful the statues and idols she erects. ² The hearts of her people are false toward God. They are guilty and must be punished. God will break down their heathen altars and smash their idols.”

³ Then they will say, “We deserted the Lord and he took away our king. But what’s the difference? We don’t need one anyway!”

⁴ They make promises they don’t intend to keep. Therefore punishment will spring up among them like poisonous weeds in the furrows of the field. ⁵ The people of Samaria tremble lest their calf idol at Beth-aven should be hurt; the priests and people, too, mourn over the departed honor of their shattered gods. ⁶ This idol—this calf-god thing—will be carted with them when they go as slaves to Assyria, a present to the great king there. Ephraim will be laughed at for trusting in this idol; Israel will be put to shame. ⁷ As for Samaria, her king shall disappear like a chip of wood upon an ocean wave. ⁸ And the idol altars of Aven at Bethel where Israel sinned will crumble. Thorns and thistles will grow up to surround them. And the people will cry to the mountains and hills to fall upon them and crush them.

⁹ “O Israel, ever since that awful night in Gibeah,^[s] there has been only sin, sin, sin! You have made no progress whatever. Was it not right that the men of Gibeah were wiped out? ¹⁰ I will come against you for your disobedience; I will gather the armies of the nations against you to punish you for your heaped-up sins.

¹¹ “Ephraim is accustomed to treading out the grain—an easy job she loves. I have never put her under a heavy yoke before; I have spared her tender neck. But now I will harness her to the plow and harrow. Her days of ease are gone.

¹² “Plant the good seeds of righteousness, and you will reap a crop of my love; plow the hard ground of your hearts, for now is the time to seek the Lord, that he may come and shower salvation upon you.

¹³ “But you have cultivated wickedness and raised a thriving crop of sins. You have earned the full reward of trusting in a lie—believing that military might and great armies can make a nation safe!

¹⁴ “Therefore, the terrors of war shall rise among your people, and all your forts will fall, just as at Beth-arbel, which Shalman^[t] destroyed; even mothers and children were dashed to death there. ¹⁵ That will be your fate, too, you people of Israel, because of your great wickedness. In one morning the king of Israel shall be destroyed.

11 “When Israel was a child, I loved him as a son and brought him out of Egypt. ² But the more I called to him, the more he rebelled, sacrificing to Baal and burning incense to idols. ³ I trained him from infancy, I taught him to walk, I held him in my arms. But he doesn’t know or even care that it was I who raised him.

⁴ “As a man would lead his favorite ox,^[u] so I led Israel with my ropes of love. I loosened his muzzle so he could eat. I myself have stooped and fed him. ⁵ But my people shall return to Egypt and Assyria because they won’t return to me.

⁶ “War will swirl through their cities; their enemies will crash through their gates and trap them in their own fortresses. ⁷ For my people are determined to desert me. And so I have sentenced them to slavery, and no one shall set them free.

⁸ “Oh, how can I give you up, my Ephraim? How can I let you go? How can I forsake you like Admah and Zeboiim?^[v] My heart cries out within me; how I long to help you! ⁹ No, I will not punish you as much as my fierce anger tells me to. This is the last time I will destroy Ephraim. For I am God and not man; I am the Holy One living among you, and I did not come to destroy.

¹⁰ “For the people shall walk after the Lord. I shall roar as a lion at their enemies and my people shall return trembling from the west. ¹¹ Like a flock of birds, they will come from Egypt—like doves flying from Assyria. And I will bring them home again; it is a promise from the Lord.”

¹² Israel surrounds me with lies and deceit, but Judah still trusts in God and is faithful to the Holy One.

12 Israel is chasing the wind, yes, shepherding a whirlwind—a dangerous game!^[w] For she has given gifts to Egypt and Assyria to get their help, and in return she gets their worthless promises.

² But the Lord is bringing a lawsuit against Judah. Jacob will be justly punished for his ways. ³ When he was born, he struggled with his brother; when he became a man, he even fought with God. ⁴ Yes, he wrestled with the Angel and prevailed. He wept and pleaded for a blessing from him. He met God there at Bethel face-to-face. God spoke to him— ⁵ the Lord, the God of heaven’s armies—Jehovah is his name.

⁶ Oh, come back to God. Live by the principles of love and justice, and always be expecting much from him, your God.

⁷ But no, my people are like crafty merchants selling from dishonest scales—they love to cheat. ⁸ Ephraim boasts, “I am so rich! I have gotten it all by myself!” But riches can’t make up for sin.

⁹ “I am the same Lord, the same God, who delivered you from slavery in Egypt, and I am the one who will consign you to living in tents again, as you do each year at the Tabernacle Feast. ¹⁰ I sent my prophets to warn you with many a vision and many a parable and dream.”

¹¹ But the sins of Gilgal flourish just the same. Row on row of altars—like furrows in a field—are used for sacrifices to your idols. And Gilead, too, is full of fools^[x] who worship idols. ¹² Jacob fled to Syria and earned a wife by tending sheep. ¹³ Then the Lord led his people out of Egypt by a prophet, who guided and protected them. ¹⁴ But Ephraim has bitterly provoked the Lord. The Lord will sentence him to death as payment for his sins.

13 It used to be when Israel spoke, the nations shook with fear, for he was a mighty prince; but he worshiped Baal and sealed his doom.

² And now the people disobey more and more. They melt their silver to mold into idols, formed with skill by the hands of men. “Sacrifice to these!” they say—men kissing calves! ³ They shall disappear like morning mist, like dew that quickly dries away, like chaff blown by the wind, like a cloud of smoke.

⁴ “I alone am God, your Lord, and have been ever since I brought you out from Egypt. You have no God but me, for there is no other Savior. ⁵ I took care of you in the wilderness, in that dry and thirsty land. ⁶ But when you had eaten and were satisfied, then you became proud and forgot me. ⁷ So I will come upon you like a lion, or a leopard lurking along the road. ⁸ I will rip you to pieces like a bear whose cubs have been taken away, and like a lion I will devour you.

⁹ “O Israel, if I destroy you, who can save you? ¹⁰ Where is your king? Why don’t you call on him for help? Where are all the leaders of the land? You asked for them, now let them save you! ¹¹ I gave you kings in my anger, and I took them away^[y] in my wrath. ¹² Ephraim’s sins are harvested and stored away for punishment.

¹³ “New birth is offered him, but he is like a child resisting in the womb—how stubborn! how foolish! ¹⁴ Shall I ransom him from hell? Shall I redeem him from Death? O Death, bring forth your terrors for his tasting! O Grave, demonstrate your plagues! For I will not relent!

¹⁵ “He was called the most fruitful of all his brothers, but the east wind—a wind of the Lord from the desert—will blow hard upon him and dry up his land. All his flowing springs and green oases will dry away, and he will die of thirst. ¹⁶ Samaria must bear her guilt, for she rebelled against her God. Her people will be killed by the invading army, her babies dashed to death against the ground, her pregnant women ripped open with a sword.”

14 O Israel, return to the Lord, your God, for you have been crushed by your sins. ² Bring your petition. Come to the Lord and say, “O Lord, take away our sins; be gracious to us and receive us, and we will offer you the sacrifice of praise. ³ Assyria cannot save us, nor can our strength in battle; never again will we call the idols we have made ‘our gods’; for in you alone, O Lord, the fatherless find mercy.”

⁴ “Then I will cure you of idolatry and faithlessness, and my love will know no bounds, for my anger will be forever gone! ⁵ I will refresh Israel like the dew from heaven; she will blossom as the lily and root deeply in the soil like cedars in Lebanon. ⁶ Her branches will spread out as beautiful as olive trees, fragrant as the forests of Lebanon. ⁷ Her people will return from exile far away and rest beneath my shadow. They will be a watered garden and blossom like grapes; they will be as fragrant as the wines of Lebanon.

⁸ “O Ephraim! Stay away from idols! I am living and strong! I look after you and care for you. I am like an evergreen tree, yielding my fruit to you throughout the year. My mercies never fail.”

⁹ Whoever is wise, let him understand these things. Whoever is intelligent, let him listen. For the paths of the Lord are true and right, and good men walk along them. But sinners trying them will fail.