Hosea 3-6

Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

3 Then said the Lord to me, Go again, love [the same] woman [Gomer] who is beloved of a paramour and is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins [used in the sacrificial feasts in idol worship].

² So I bought her for ^[a]fifteen pieces of silver and a homer and a half of barley [the price of a slave].

³ And I said to her, You shall be [betrothed] to me for many days; you shall not play the harlot and you shall not belong to another man. So will I also be to you [until you have proved your loyalty to me and our marital relations may be resumed].

⁴ For the children of Israel shall dwell and sit deprived many days, without king or prince, without sacrifice or [idolatrous] pillar, and without ephod [a garment worn by priests when seeking divine counsel] or teraphim (household gods).

⁵ Afterward shall the children of Israel return and seek the Lord their God, [inquiring of and requiring Him] and [from the line of] David, their King [of kings]; and they shall come in [anxious] fear to the Lord and to His goodness and His good things in the latter days.^(A)

4 Hear the word of the Lord, you children of Israel, for the Lord has a controversy (a pleading contention) with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no faithfulness, love, pity and mercy, or knowledge of God [from personal experience with Him] in the land.

² There is nothing but [false] swearing and breaking faith and killing and stealing and committing adultery; they break out [into violence], one [deed of] bloodshed following close on another.

³ Therefore shall the land [continually] mourn, and all who dwell in it shall languish, together with the wild beasts of the open country and the birds of the heavens; yes, the fishes of the sea also shall [perish because of the drought] be collected and taken away.

⁴ Yet let no man strive, neither let any man reprove [another—do not waste your time in mutual recriminations], for with you is My contention, O priest.

⁵ And you shall stumble in the daytime, and the [false] prophet also shall stumble with you in the night; and I will destroy your mother [the priestly nation].^(B)

⁶ My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you [the priestly nation] have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you that you shall be no priest to Me; seeing you have forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your children.

⁷ The more they increased and multiplied [in prosperity and power], the more they sinned against Me; I will change their glory into shame.

⁸ They feed on the sin of My people and set their heart on their iniquity.

⁹ And it shall be: Like people, like priest; I will punish them for their ways and repay them for their doings.

¹⁰ For they shall eat and not have enough; they shall play the harlot and beget no increase, because they have forsaken the Lord for harlotry;

¹¹ Harlotry and wine and new wine take away the heart and the mind and the spiritual understanding.

¹² My people [habitually] ask counsel of their [senseless] wood [idols], and their staff [of wood] gives them oracles and instructs them. For the spirit of harlotry has led them astray and they have played the harlot, withdrawing themselves from subjection to their God.

¹³ They sacrifice on the tops of the mountains, and they burn incense upon the hills and under oaks, poplars, and terebinths, because there the shade is good. Therefore your daughters play the harlot and your sons’ wives commit adultery.

¹⁴ I will not punish your daughters when they play the harlot nor your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery, for [the fathers and husbands] themselves go aside in order to be alone with women who prostitute themselves for gain, and they sacrifice at the altar with dedicated harlots [who surrender their chastity in honor of the goddess]. Therefore the people without understanding shall stumble and fall and come to ruin.

¹⁵ Though you, Israel, play the harlot and worship idols, let not Judah offend and become guilty; come not to Gilgal, neither go up to Beth-aven [contemptuous reference to Bethel, then noted for idolatry], nor swear [in idolatrous service, saying], As the Lord lives.

¹⁶ For Israel has behaved stubbornly, like a stubborn heifer. How then should he expect to be fed and treated by the Lord like a lamb in a large pasture?

¹⁷ Ephraim is joined [fast] to idols, [so] let him alone [to take the consequences].

¹⁸ Their drinking carousal over, they go habitually to play the harlot; [Ephraim’s] rulers [continue to] love shame more than her glory [which is the Lord, Israel’s God].

¹⁹ The resistless wind [of God’s wrath] has bound up [Israel] in its wings or skirts, and [in captivity] they and their altars shall be put to shame because of their sacrifices [to calves, to sun, moon, and stars, and to heathen gods].

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.^(C)

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 ^[b](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.^(D)

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.^(E)

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],