Hosea 4-6

Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition

4 Hear the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel, for the Lord shall enter into judgment with the inhabitants of the land: for there is no truth, and there is no mercy, and there is no knowledge of God in the land.

² Cursing, and lying, and killing, and theft, and adultery have overflowed, and blood hath touched blood.

³ Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth in it shall languish with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of the air: yea, the fishes of the sea also shall be gathered together.

⁴ But yet let not any man judge: and let not a man be rebuked: for thy people are as they that contradict the priest.

⁵ And thou shalt fall to day, and the prophet also shall fall with thee: in the night I have made thy mother to be silent.

⁶ My people have been silent, because they had no knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will reject thee, that thou shalt not do the office of priesthood to me: and thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I also will forget thy children.

⁷ According to the multitude of them so have they sinned against me: I will change their glory into shame.

⁸ They shall eat the sins of my people, and shall lift up their souls to their iniquity.

⁹ And there shall be like people like priest: and I will visit their ways upon them, and I will repay them their devices.

¹⁰ And they shall eat and shall not be filled: they have committed fornication, and have not ceased: because they have forsaken the Lord in not observing his law.

¹¹ Fornication, and wine, and drunkenness take away the understanding.

¹² My people have consulted their stocks, and their staff hath declared unto them: for the spirit of fornication hath deceived them, and they have committed fornication against their God.

¹³ They offered sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains, and burnt incense upon the hills: under the oak, and the poplar, and the turpentine tree, because the shadow thereof was good: therefore shall your daughters commit fornication, and your spouses shall be adulteresses.

¹⁴ I will not visit upon your daughters when they shall commit fornication, and upon your spouses when they shall commit adultery: because themselves conversed with harlots, and offered sacrifice with the effeminate, and the people that doth not understand shall be beaten.

¹⁵ If thou play the harlot, O Israel, at least let not Juda offend: and go ye not into Galgal, and come not up into Bethaven, and do not swear: The Lord liveth.

¹⁶ For Israel hath gone astray like a wanton heifer: now will the Lord feed them, as a lamb in a spacious place.

¹⁷ Ephraim is a partaker with idols, let him alone.

¹⁸ Their banquet is separated, they have gone astray by fornication: they that should have protected them have loved to bring shame upon them.

¹⁹ The wind hath bound them up in its wings, and they shall be confounded because of their sacrifices.

5 Hear ye this, O priests, and hearken, O ye house of Israel, and give ear, O house of the king: for there is a judgment against you, because you have been a snare to them whom you should have watched over, and a net spread upon Thabor.

² And you have turned aside victims into the depth: and I am, the teacher of them all.

³ I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hid from me: for now Ephraim hath committed fornication, Israel is defiled.

⁴ They will not set their thoughts to return to their God: for the spirit of fornication is in the midst of them, and they have not known the Lord.

⁵ And the pride of Israel shall answer in his face: and Israel and Ephraim shall fall in their iniquity, Juda also shall fall with them.

⁶ With their flocks, and with their herds, they shall go to seek the Lord, and shall not find him: he is withdrawn from them.

⁷ They have transgressed against the Lord, for they have begotten children that are strangers: now shall a month devour them with their portions.

⁸ Blow ye the cornet in Gabaa, the trumpet in Rama: howl ye in Bethaven, behind thy back, O Benjamin.

⁹ Ephraim shall be in desolation in the day of rebuke: among the tribes of Israel I have shewn that which shall surely be.

¹⁰ The princes of Juda are become as they that take up the bound: I will pour out my wrath upon them like water.

¹¹ Ephraim is under oppression, and broken in judgment: because he began to go after filthiness.

¹² And I will be like a moth to Ephraim: and like rottenness to the house of Juda.

¹³ And Ephraim saw his sickness, and Juda his band: and Ephraim went to the Assyrian, and sent to the avenging king: and he shall not be able to heal you, neither shall he be able to take off the band from you.

¹⁴ For I will be like a lioness to Ephraim, and like a lion's whelp to the house of Juda: I, I will catch, and go: I will take away, and there is none that can rescue.

¹⁵ I will go and return to my place: until you are consumed, and seek my face.

6 In their affliction they will rise early to me: Come, and let us return to the Lord:

² For he hath taken us, and he will heal us: he will strike, and he will cure us.

³ He will revive us after two days: on the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight. We shall know, and we shall follow on, that we may know the Lord. His going forth is prepared as the morning light, and he will come to us as the early and the latter rain to the earth.

⁴ What shall I do to thee, O Ephraim? what shall I do to thee, O Juda? your mercy is as a morning cloud, and as the dew that goeth away in the morning.

⁵ For this reason have I hewed them by the prophets, I have slain them by the words of my mouth: and thy judgments shall go forth as the light.

⁶ For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice: and the knowledge of God more than holocausts.

⁷ But they, like Adam, have transgressed the covenant, there have they dealt treacherously against me.

⁸ Galaad is a city of workers of idols, supplanted with blood.

⁹ And like the jaws of highway robbers, they conspire with the priests who murder in the way those that pass out of Sichem: for they have wrought wickedness.

¹⁰ I have seen a horrible thing in the house of Israel: the fornications of Ephraim there: Israel is defiled.

¹¹ And thou also, O Juda, set thee a harvest, when I shall bring back the captivity of my people.