Hosea 9
The Lord Will Punish Israel
1 Rejoice not, O Israel!Exult not like the peoples;
a for you have played the whore, forsaking your God.
b You have loved a prostitute’s wages
on all threshing floors.
2 c Threshing floor and wine vat shall not feed them,
and d the new wine shall fail them.
3 They shall not remain in e the land of the Lord,
but f Ephraim shall return to Egypt,
and g they shall eat unclean food in Assyria.
4 h They shall not pour drink offerings of wine to the Lord,
i and their sacrifices shall not please him.
It shall be like j mourners’ bread to them;
all who eat of it shall be defiled;
for their bread shall be for their hunger only;
k it shall not come to the house of the Lord.
5 l 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 m Egypt shall gather them;
Memphis shall bury them.
Nettles shall possess n their precious things of silver;
o thorns shall be in their tents.
7 p The days of punishment have come;
the days of recompense have come;
Israel shall know it.
q The prophet is a fool;
the man of the spirit is mad,
because of your great iniquity
and great hatred.
8 The prophet is r the watchman of Ephraim with my God;
yet s a fowler’s snare is on all his ways,
and hatred in the house of his God.
9 t They have deeply corrupted themselves
as u in the days of Gibeah:
v he will remember their iniquity;
he will punish their sins.
10 Like grapes in the wilderness,
w I found Israel.
Like the first fruit on the fig tree
in its first season,
I saw your fathers.
But x they came to Baal-peor
and y consecrated themselves to the thing of shame,
and z became detestable like the thing they loved.
11 Ephraim’s aa glory shall fly away like a bird—
ab no birth, no pregnancy, no conception!
12 ac Even if they bring up children,
I will bereave them till none is left.
ad Woe to them
when ae I depart from them!
13 Ephraim af as I have seen, was like a young palm ▼
▼
Or like Tyre
planted in a meadow;but ah Ephraim must lead his children out to slaughter. ▼
▼
Hebrew to him who slaughters
14 Give them, O Lord—
what will you give?
Give them aj a miscarrying womb
and dry breasts.
15 Every evil of theirs is in ak 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 al their princes are am rebels.
16 Ephraim is stricken;
an their root is dried up;
they shall bear no fruit.
Even ao though they give birth,
ap I will put their beloved children to death.
17 aq My God will reject them
because they have not listened to him;
ar they shall be wanderers among the nations.
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