[Image: Introduction to Hosea]
HOSEA 9
The LORD Will Punish Israel
[1] Rejoice not, O Israel!
Exult not like the peoples;
for you have played the whore, forsaking your God.
You have loved a prostitute’s wages
on all threshing floors.
[2] Threshing floor and wine vat shall not feed them,
and the new wine shall fail them.
[3] They shall not remain in the land of the LORD,
but Ephraim shall return to Egypt,
and they shall eat unclean food in Assyria.
[4] They shall not pour drink offerings of wine to the LORD,
and their sacrifices shall not please him.
It shall be like mourners’ bread to them;
all who eat of it shall be defiled;
for their bread shall be for their hunger only;
it shall not come to the house of the LORD.
[5] What will you do on the day of the appointed festival,
and on the day of the feast of the LORD?
[6] For behold, they are going away from destruction;
but Egypt shall gather them;
Memphis shall bury them.
Nettles shall possess their precious things of silver;
thorns shall be in their tents.
[7] The days of punishment have come;
the days of recompense have come;
Israel shall know it.
The prophet is a fool;
the man of the spirit is mad,
because of your great iniquity
and great hatred.
[8] The prophet is the watchman of Ephraim with my God;
yet a fowler’s snare is on all his ways,
and hatred in the house of his God.
[9] They have deeply corrupted themselves
as in the days of Gibeah:
he will remember their iniquity;
he will punish their sins.
[10] Like grapes in the wilderness,
I found Israel.
Like the first fruit on the fig tree
in its first season,
I saw your fathers.
But they came to Baal-peor
and consecrated themselves to the thing of shame,
and became detestable like the thing they loved.
[11] Ephraim’s glory shall fly away like a bird—
no birth, no pregnancy, no conception!
[12] Even if they bring up children,
I will bereave them till none is left.
Woe to them
when I depart from them!
[13] Ephraim, as I have seen, was like a young palm planted in a meadow;
but Ephraim must lead his children out to slaughter.
[14] Give them, O LORD—
what will you give?
Give them a miscarrying womb
and dry breasts.
[15] Every evil of theirs is in Gilgal;
there I began to hate them.
Because of the wickedness of their deeds
I will drive them out of my house.
I will love them no more;
all their princes are rebels.
[16] Ephraim is stricken;
their root is dried up;
they shall bear no fruit.
Even though they give birth,
I will put their beloved children to death.
[17] My God will reject them
because they have not listened to him;
they shall be wanderers among the nations. (ESV)
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