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“Don’t point your finger at someone else
    and try to pass the blame!
My complaint, you priests,
    is with you.[a]
So you will stumble in broad daylight,
    and your false prophets will fall with you in the night.
    And I will destroy Israel, your mother.
My people are being destroyed
    because they don’t know me.
Since you priests refuse to know me,
    I refuse to recognize you as my priests.
Since you have forgotten the laws of your God,
    I will forget to bless your children.
The more priests there are,
    the more they sin against me.
They have exchanged the glory of God
    for the shame of idols.[b]

“When the people bring their sin offerings, the priests get fed.
    So the priests are glad when the people sin!
‘And what the priests do, the people also do.’
    So now I will punish both priests and people
    for their wicked deeds.
10 They will eat and still be hungry.
    They will play the prostitute and gain nothing from it,
for they have deserted the Lord
11     to worship other gods.

“Wine has robbed my people
    of their understanding.

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Footnotes

  1. 4:4 Hebrew Your people are like those with a complaint against the priests.
  2. 4:7 As in Syriac version and an ancient Hebrew tradition; Masoretic Text reads I will turn their glory into shame.

Yet let no one protest,
        and let no one complain.

    Listen, priest, I am angry with your people.[a]
You will stumble by day;
        and at nighttime so will your prophet,
        and I will destroy your mother.
My people are destroyed
        from lack of knowledge.
    Since you have rejected knowledge,
        so I will reject you from serving me as a priest.
    Since you have forgotten the Instruction of your God,
        so also I will forget your children.
The more they increased,
        the more they sinned against me;
        they exchanged their glory for shame.
They feed on the sin of my people;
        they set their hearts on evil things.
The priest will be just like the people;
    I will punish them for their ways,
        and judge them for their deeds.
10 They will eat but not be satisfied;
    they will have sex like prostitutes,
        but they will not have children,
    because they have rejected the Lord
        to devote themselves to 11 false religious practices.

Description of Israel’s idolatry

    Wine and new wine
        destroy understanding.

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Footnotes

  1. Hosea 4:4 Heb uncertain