[Image: Introduction to Hosea]
HOSEA 7
[1] when I would heal Israel,
the iniquity of Ephraim is revealed,
and the evil deeds of Samaria,
for they deal falsely;
the thief breaks in,
and the bandits raid outside.
[2] But they do not consider
that I remember all their evil.
Now their deeds surround them;
they are before my face.
[3] By their evil they make the king glad,
and the princes by their treachery.
[4] They are all adulterers;
they are like a heated oven
whose baker ceases to stir the fire,
from the kneading of the dough
until it is leavened.
[5] On the day of our king, the princes
became sick with the heat of wine;
he stretched out his hand with mockers.
[6] For with hearts like an oven they approach their intrigue;
all night their anger smolders;
in the morning it blazes like a flaming fire.
[7] All of them are hot as an oven,
and they devour their rulers.
All their kings have fallen,
and none of them calls upon me.
[8] Ephraim mixes himself with the peoples;
Ephraim is a cake not turned.
[9] Strangers devour his strength,
and he knows it not;
gray hairs are sprinkled upon him,
and he knows it not.
[10] The pride of Israel testifies to his face;
yet they do not return to the LORD their God,
nor seek him, for all this.
[11] Ephraim is like a dove,
silly and without sense,
calling to Egypt, going to Assyria.
[12] As they go, I will spread over them my net;
I will bring them down like birds of the heavens;
I will discipline them according to the report made to their congregation.
[13] Woe to them, for they have strayed from me!
Destruction to them, for they have rebelled against me!
I would redeem them,
but they speak lies against me.
[14] They do not cry to me from the heart,
but they wail upon their beds;
for grain and wine they gash themselves;
they rebel against me.
[15] Although I trained and strengthened their arms,
yet they devise evil against me.
[16] They return, but not upward;
they are like a treacherous bow;
their princes shall fall by the sword
because of the insolence of their tongue.
This shall be their derision in the land of Egypt. (ESV)
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