Hosea 6-9

Authorized (King James) Version

6 Come, and let us return unto the Lord:
for he hath torn, and he will heal us;
he hath smitten, and he will bind us up.
² After two days will he revive us:
in the third day he will raise us up,
and we shall live in his sight.
³ Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord:
his going forth is prepared as the morning;
and he shall come unto us as the rain,
as the latter and former rain unto the earth.

⁴ O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee?
O Judah, what shall I do unto thee?
for your goodness is as a morning cloud,
and as the early dew it goeth away.
⁵ Therefore have I hewed them by the prophets;
I have slain them by the words of my mouth:
and thy judgments are as the light that goeth forth.
⁶ For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice;
and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.
⁷ But they like men have transgressed the covenant:
there have they dealt treacherously against me.
⁸ Gilead is a city of them that work iniquity,
and is polluted with blood.
⁹ And as troops of robbers wait for a man,
so the company of priests murder in the way by consent:
for they commit lewdness.
¹⁰ I have seen an horrible thing in the house of Israel:
there is the whoredom of Ephraim, Israel is defiled.
¹¹ Also, O Judah, he hath set an harvest for thee,
when I returned the captivity of my people.

7 When I would have healed Israel,
then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered,
and the wickedness of Samaria:
for they commit falsehood;
and the thief cometh in,
and the troop of robbers spoileth without.
² And they consider not in their hearts
that I remember all their wickedness:
now their own doings have beset them about;
they are before my face.
³ They make the king glad with their wickedness,
and the princes with their lies.
⁴ They are all adulterers, as an oven heated by the baker,
who ceaseth from raising after he hath kneaded the dough, until it be leavened.
⁵ In the day of our king the princes have made him sick with bottles of wine;
he stretched out his hand with scorners.
⁶ For they have made ready their heart like an oven, whiles they lie in wait:
their baker sleepeth all the night;
in the morning it burneth as a flaming fire.
⁷ They are all hot as an oven, and have devoured their judges;
all their kings are fallen:
there is none among them that calleth unto me.
⁸ Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people;
Ephraim is a cake not turned.
⁹ Strangers have devoured his strength,
and he knoweth it not:
yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him,
yet he knoweth not.
¹⁰ And the pride of Israel testifieth to his face:
and they do not return to the Lord their God,
nor seek him for all this.

¹¹ Ephraim also is like a silly dove without heart:
they call to Egypt, they go to Assyria.
¹² When they shall go, I will spread my net upon them;
I will bring them down as the fowls of the heaven;
I will chastise them, as their congregation hath heard.
¹³ Woe unto them! for they have fled from me:
destruction unto them! because they have transgressed against me:
though I have redeemed them, yet they have spoken lies against me.
¹⁴ And they have not cried unto me with their heart,
when they howled upon their beds:
they assemble themselves for corn and wine,
and they rebel against me.
¹⁵ Though I have bound and strengthened their arms,
yet do they imagine mischief against me.
¹⁶ They return, but not to the most High:
they are like a deceitful bow:
their princes shall fall by the sword for the rage of their tongue:
this shall be their derision in the land of Egypt.

8 Set the trumpet to thy mouth.
He shall come as an eagle against the house of the Lord,
because they have transgressed my covenant,
and trespassed against my law.
² Israel shall cry unto me, My God, we know thee.
³ Israel hath cast off the thing that is good:
the enemy shall pursue him.
⁴ They have set up kings, but not by me:
they have made princes, and I knew it not:
of their silver and their gold have they made them idols,
that they may be cut off.

⁵ Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee off;
mine anger is kindled against them:
how long will it be ere they attain to innocency?
⁶ For from Israel was it also:
the workman made it; therefore it is not God:
but the calf of Samaria shall be broken in pieces.
⁷ For they have sown the wind,
and they shall reap the whirlwind:
it hath no stalk:
the bud shall yield no meal:
if so be it yield,
the strangers shall swallow it up.
⁸ Israel is swallowed up:
now shall they be among the Gentiles as a vessel wherein is no pleasure.
⁹ For they are gone up to Assyria,
a wild ass alone by himself:
Ephraim hath hired lovers.
¹⁰ Yea, though they have hired among the nations,
now will I gather them,
and they shall sorrow a little
for the burden of the king of princes.
¹¹ Because Ephraim hath made many altars to sin,
altars shall be unto him to sin.
¹² I have written to him the great things of my law,
but they were counted as a strange thing.
¹³ They sacrifice flesh for the sacrifices of mine offerings, and eat it;
but the Lord accepteth them not;
now will he remember their iniquity, and visit their sins:
they shall return to Egypt.
¹⁴ For Israel hath forgotten his Maker, and buildeth temples;
and Judah hath multiplied fenced cities:
but I will send a fire upon his cities,
and it shall devour the palaces thereof.

9 Rejoice not, O Israel, for joy, as other people:
for thou hast gone a whoring from thy God,
thou hast loved a reward upon every cornfloor.
² The floor and the winepress shall not feed them,
and the new wine shall fail in her.
³ They shall not dwell in the Lord’s land;
but Ephraim shall return to Egypt,
and they shall eat unclean things in Assyria.
⁴ They shall not offer wine offerings to the Lord,
neither shall they be pleasing unto him:
their sacrifices shall be unto them as the bread of mourners;
all that eat thereof shall be polluted:
for their bread for their soul shall not come into the house of the Lord.
⁵ What will ye do in the solemn day,
and in the day of the feast of the Lord?
⁶ For, lo, they are gone because of destruction:
Egypt shall gather them up,
Memphis shall bury them:
the pleasant places for their silver, nettles shall possess them:
thorns shall be in their tabernacles.

⁷ The days of visitation are come,
the days of recompence are come;
Israel shall know it:
the prophet is a fool,
the spiritual man is mad,
for the multitude of thine iniquity,
and the great hatred.
⁸ The watchman of Ephraim was with my God:
but the prophet is a snare of a fowler in all his ways,
and hatred in the house of his God.
⁹ They have deeply corrupted themselves, as in the days of Gibeah:
therefore he will remember their iniquity,
he will visit their sins.
¹⁰ I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness;
I saw your fathers as the firstripe in the fig tree at her first time:
but they went to Baal-peor,
and separated themselves unto that shame;
and their abominations were according as they loved.
¹¹ As for Ephraim, their glory shall fly away like a bird,
from the birth, and from the womb,
and from the conception.
¹² Though they bring up their children, yet will I bereave them,
that there shall not be a man left:
yea, woe also to them when I depart from them!
¹³ Ephraim, as I saw Tyrus, is planted in a pleasant place:
but Ephraim shall bring forth his children to the murderer.
¹⁴ Give them, O Lord: what wilt thou give?
give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.
¹⁵ All their wickedness is in Gilgal:
for there I hated them:
for the wickedness of their doings
I will drive them out of mine house,
I will love them no more:
all their princes are revolters.
¹⁶ Ephraim is smitten,
their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit:
yea, though they bring forth,
yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb.
¹⁷ My God will cast them away,
because they did not hearken unto him:
and they shall be wanderers among the nations.