Hosea 9:1-17

  • Ephraim’s sins lead to rejection by God (1-17)

    • Dedication to the shameful god (10)

9  “Do not rejoice, O Israel,+Do not act joyfully like the peoples. For by prostitution* you have strayed from your God.+ You have loved the wages of a prostitute on every threshing floor of grain.+   But the threshing floor and winepress will not feed them,And new wine will fail her.+   They will not continue dwelling in the land of Jehovah;+Instead, Eʹphra·im will return to Egypt,And in As·syrʹi·a they will eat what is unclean.+   They will no longer pour out wine offerings to Jehovah;+Their sacrifices will not please him.+ They are like the bread of mourning;All those eating it will defile themselves. For their bread is for themselves alone;*It will not come into the house of Jehovah.   What will you do in the day of meeting,*In the day of Jehovah’s festival?   For look! they will have to flee because of destruction.+ Egypt will gather them together,+ and Memʹphis will bury them.+ Nettles will take possession of their precious things of silver,And thornbushes will be in their tents.   The days of reckoning will come,+The days of retribution will come,And Israel will know it. Their prophet will be a fool, and the man of inspiration will go mad;Because your error is abundant, the animosity against you is abundant.”   The watchman+ of Eʹphra·im was with my God.+ But now all the ways of his prophets+ are as the traps of a birdcatcher;There is animosity in the house of his God.   They have sunk deep into ruin, as in the days of Gibʹe·ah.+ He will remember their error and punish their sins.+ 10  “Like grapes in the wilderness I found Israel.+ Like the first of the early figs on a fig tree I saw your forefathers. But they went to Baʹal of Peʹor;+They dedicated themselves to the shameful thing,*+And they became disgusting like the object of their love. 11  Eʹphra·im’s glory flies away like a bird;There is no giving birth, no pregnancy, and no conception.+ 12  Even if they raise children,I will bereave them until no man is left;+Yes, woe to them when I turn away from them!+ 13  Eʹphra·im, planted in a pasture, was to me like Tyre;+Now Eʹphra·im must bring his sons out to the slaughter.” 14  Give them, O Jehovah, what you should give them;A womb that miscarries and dry* breasts. 15  “All their wickedness was in Gilʹgal,+ for there I came to hate them. I will drive them away from my house because of their evil deeds.+ I will no longer love them;+All their princes are stubborn. 16  Eʹphra·im will be struck down.+ Their root will dry up, and they will produce no fruit. Even if they give birth, I will put to death their cherished offspring.” 17  My God will reject them,For they have not listened to him,+And they will become fugitives among the nations.+

Footnotes

Or “immorality; promiscuity.”
Or “for their own soul.”
Or “your appointed feast.”
Or “the shameful god.”
Or “shriveled.”