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Hosea

↑   1.

HOSEA. A prophet of the northern kingdom - Israel.

¹The word of Yahweh that came to Hosea the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.

Hosea's wife & children.

²When Yahweh first spoke through Hosea, Yahweh said to Hosea, "Go, take to yourself a wife of harlotry and have children of harlotry, for the land commits great harlotry by forsaking Yahweh." ³So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.

⁴And Yahweh said to him, "Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. ⁵And on that day, I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel."

⁶She conceived again and bore a daughter. And Yahweh said to him, "Call her name Not pitied, for I will no more have pity on the house of Israel, to forgive them at all. ⁷But I will have pity on the house of Judah, and I will deliver them by Yahweh their God; I will not deliver them by bow, nor by sword, nor by war, nor by horses, nor by horsemen."

⁸When she had weaned Not pitied, she conceived and bore a son. ⁹And Yahweh said, "Call his name Not my people, for you are not my people and I am not your God."

Israel is to be restored.

¹⁰Yet the number of the people of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which can be neither measured nor numbered; and in the place where it was said to them, "You are not my people," it shall be said to them, "Sons of the living God." ¹¹And the people of Judah and the people of Israel shall be gathered together, and they shall appoint for themselves one head; and they shall go up from the land, for great shall be the day of Jezreel.

↑   2.

¹Say to your brother, "My people," and to your sister, "She has obtained pity."

Unfaithful Gomer - unfaithful Israel.

The LORD's love for his children.

¹⁴"Therefore, behold, I will allure her,
and bring her into the wilderness,
and speak tenderly to her.
¹⁵And there I will give her her vineyards,
and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth,
as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt. ¹⁶"And in that day, says Yahweh, you will call me, 'My husband,' and no longer will you call me, 'My Baal.' ¹⁷For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be mentioned by name no more. ¹⁸And I will make for you a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the creeping things of the ground; and I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land; and I will make you lie down in safety. ¹⁹And I will betroth you to me for ever; I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy. ²⁰I will betroth you to me in faithfulness; and you shall know Yahweh. ²¹"And in that day, says Yahweh,
I will answer the heavens
and they shall answer the earth;
²²and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil,
and they shall answer Jezreel;
²³and I will sow him for myself in the land.
And I will have pity on Not pitied,
and I will say to Not my people, 'You are my people';
and he shall say 'You are my God.' "

↑   3.

Hosea & the unfaithful woman.

¹And Yahweh said to me, "Go again, love a woman who is beloved of a paramour and is an adulteress; even as Yahweh loves the people of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins." ²So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley. ³And I said to her, "You must dwell as mine for many days; you shall not play the harlot, or belong to another man; so will I also be to you." ⁴For the children of Israel shall dwell many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or teraphim. ⁵Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek Yahweh their God, and David their king; and they shall come in fear to Yahweh and to his goodness in the latter days.

The LORD's accusation against Israel.

⁴Yet let no one contend,
and let none accuse,
for with you is my contention, O priest.
⁵You shall stumble by day,
the prophet also shall stumble with you by night;
and I will destroy your mother.
⁶My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge;
because you have rejected knowledge,
I reject you from being a priest to me.
And since you have forgotten the law of your God,
I also will forget your children.

⁷The more they increased,
the more they sinned against me;
I will change their glory into shame.
⁸They feed on the sin of my people;
they are greedy for their iniquity.
⁹And it shall be like people, like priest;
I will punish them for their ways,
and requite them for their deeds.
¹⁰They shall eat, but not be satisfied;
they shall play the harlot, but not multiply;
because they have forsaken Yahweh
to cherish harlotry.

¹¹Wine and new wine
take away the understanding.
¹²My people inquire of a thing of wood,
and their staff gives them oracles.
For a spirit of harlotry has led them astray,
and they have left their God to play the harlot.
¹³They sacrifice on the tops of the mountains,
and make offerings upon the hills,
under oak, poplar, and terebinth,
because their shade is good.
Therefore your daughters play the harlot,
and your brides commit adultery.
¹⁴I will not punish your daughters when they play the harlot,
nor your brides when they commit adultery;
for the men themselves go aside with harlots,
and sacrifice with cult prostitutes,
and a people without understanding shall come to ruin.

¹⁵Though you play the harlot, O Israel,
let not Judah become guilty.
Enter not into Gilgal,
nor go up to Beth-aven,
and swear not, "As Yahweh lives."
¹⁶Like a stubborn heifer,
Israel is stubborn;
can Yahweh now feed them
like a lamb in a broad pasture?

¹⁷Ephraim is joined to idols,
let him alone.
¹⁸A band of drunkards, they give themselves to harlotry;
they love shame more than their glory.
¹⁹A wind has wrapped them in its wings,
and they shall be ashamed because of their alters. ¹Hear this, O priests!
Give heed, O house of Israel!
Hearken, O house of the king!
For the judgment pertains to you;
for you have been a snare at Mizpah,
and a net spread upon Tabor.
²And they have made deep the pit of Shittim;
but I will chastise all of them.
³I know Ephraim,
and Israel is not hid from me;
for now, O Ephraim, you have played the harlot,
Israel is defiled.
⁴Their deeds do not permit them
to return to their God.
For the spirit of harlotry is within them,
and they know not Yahweh.

Hosea warns against Idolatry.

⁵The pride of Israel testifies to his face;
Ephraim shall stumble in his guilt;
Judah also shall stumble with them.
⁶With their flocks and herds they shall go
to seek Yahweh,
but they will not find him;
he has withdrawn from them.
⁷They have dealt faithlessly with Yahweh;
for they have borne alien children.
Now the new moon shall devour them with their fields.

War between Israel & Judah.

⁸Blow the horn in Gibeah,
the trumpet in Ramah.
Sound the alarm at Beth-aven;
tremble, O Benjamin!
⁹Ephraim shall become a desolation
in the day of punishment;
among the tribes of Israel
I declare what is sure.
¹⁰The princes of Judah have become
like those who remove the landmark;
upon them I will pour out
my wrath like water.
¹¹Ephraim is oppressed, crushed in judgment,
because he was determined to go after vanity.
¹²Therefore I am like a moth to Ephraim,
and like dry rot to the house of Judah.

¹³When Ephraim saw his sickness,
and Judah his wound,
then Ephraim went to Assyria,
and sent to the great king.
But he is not able to cure you
or heal your wound.
¹⁴For I will be like a lion to Ephraim,
and like a young lion to the house of Judah.
I, even I, will rend and go away,
I will carry off, and none shall rescue.

¹⁵I will return again to my place,
until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face,
and in their distress they seek me, saying,

The people's insincere repentance.

⁴What shall I do with you, O Ephraim?
What shall I do with you, O Judah?
Your love is like a morning cloud,
like the dew that goes early away.
⁵Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets,
I have slain them by the words of my mouth,
and my judgment goes forth as the light.
⁶For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
the knowledge of God, rather than burnt offerings.

⁷But at Adam they transgressed the covenant;
there they dealt faithlessly with me.
⁸Gilead is a city of evildoers,
tracked with blood.
⁹As robbers lie in wait for a man,
so the priests are banded together;
they murder on the way to Shechem,
yea, they commit villainy.
¹⁰In the house of Israel I have seen a horrible thing;
Ephraim's harlotry is there, Israel is defiled.

¹¹For you also, O Judah, a harvest is appointed.
When I would restore the fortunes of my people, ¹when I would heal Israel,
the corruption of Ephraim is revealed,
and the wicked deeds of Samaria;
for they deal falsely,
the thief breaks in,
and the bandits raid without.
²But they do not consider
that I remember all their evil works.
Now their deeds encompass them,
they are before my face.

Conspiracy in the palace.

³By their wickedness they make the king glad,
and the princes by their treachery.
⁴They 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.
⁵On the day of our king the princes
became sick with the heat of wine;
he stretched out his hand with mockers.
⁶For like an oven their hearts burn with intrigue;
all night their anger smolders;
in the morning it blazes like a flaming fire.
⁷All of them are hot as an oven,
and they devour their rulers.
All their kings have fallen;
and none of them calls upon me.

Israel & the nations.

⁸Ephraim mixes himself with the peoples;
Ephraim is a cake not turned.
⁹Aliens devour his strength,
and he knows it not;
gray hairs are sprinkled upon him,
and he knows it not.
¹⁰The pride of Israel witnesses against him;
yet they do not return to Yahweh their God,
nor seek him, for all this.

¹¹Ephraim is like a dove,
silly and without sense,
calling to Egypt, going to Assyria.
¹²As they go, I will spread over them my net;
I will bring them down like birds of the air;
I will chastise them for their wicked deeds.
¹³Woe 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.

¹⁴They 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.
¹⁵Although I trained and strengthened their arms,
yet they devise evil against me.
¹⁶They turn to Baal;
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.

The LORD condemns Israel for Idol worship.

⁴They made kings, but not through me.
They set up princes, but without my knowledge.
With their silver and gold they made idols
for their own destruction.
⁵I have spurned your calf, O Samaria.
My anger burns against them.
How long will it be till they are pure ⁶in Israel?
A workman made it;
it is not God.
The calf of Samaria
shall be broken to pieces.

⁷For they sow the wind,
and they shall reap the whirlwind.
The standing grain has no heads,
it shall yield no meal;
if it were to yield,
aliens would devour it.
⁸Israel is swallowed up;
already they are among the nations
as a useless vessel.
⁹For they have gone up to Assyria,
a wild ass wandering alone;
Ephraim has hired lovers.
¹⁰Though they hire allies among the nations,
I will soon gather them up.
And they shall cease for a little while
from anointing king and princes.

¹¹Because Ephraim has multiplied altars for sinning,
they have become to him altars for sinning.
¹²Were I to write for him my laws by ten thousands,
they would be regarded as a strange thing.
¹³They love sacrifice;
they sacrifice flesh and eat it;
but Yahweh has no delight in them.
Now he will remember their iniquity,
and punish their sins;
they shall return to Egypt.
¹⁴For Israel has forgotten his Maker,
and built palaces;
and Judah has multiplied fortified cities;
but I will send a fire upon his cities,
and it shall devour his strongholds.

Hosea pronounces punishment for Israel.

⁴They shall not pour libations of wine to Yahweh;
and they shall not please him with their sacrifices.
Their bread shall be like mourners' bread;
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 Yahweh.

⁵What will you do on the day of appointed festival,
and on the day of the feast of Yahweh?
⁶For behold, they are going to Assyria;
Egypt shall gather them,
Memphis shall bury them.
Nettles shall possess their precious things of silver;
thorns shall be in their tents.

⁷The 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.
⁸The prophet is the watchman of Ephraim,
the people of my God,
yet a fowler's snare is on all his ways,
and hatred in the house of his God.
⁹They have deeply corrupted themselves
as in the days of Gibeah:
he will remember their iniquity,
he will punish their sins.

The consequences of Israel's sin.

¹⁰Like 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 Baal,
and became detestable like the thing they loved.
¹¹Ephraim's glory shall fly away like a bird -
no birth, no pregnancy, no conception!
¹²Even if they bring up children,
I will bereave them till none is left.
Woe to them
when I depart from them!
¹³Ephraim's sons, as I have seen, are destined for a prey;
Ephraim must lead forth his sons to slaughter.
¹⁴Give them, O Yahweh -
what will you give?
Give them a miscarrying womb
and dry breasts.

Judgement on Israel.

¹⁵Every 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.

¹⁶Ephraim is stricken,
their root is dried up,
they shall bear no fruit.
Even though they bring forth,
I will slay their beloved children.
¹⁷My God will cast them off,
because they have not hearkened to him;
they shall be wanderers among the nations.

³For now they will say:
"We have no king,
for we fear not Yahweh,
and a king, what could he do for us?"
⁴They utter mere words;
with empty oaths they make covenants;
so judgment springs up like poisonous weeds
in the furrows of the field.
⁵The inhabitants of Samaria tremble
for the calf of Beth-aven.
Its people shall mourn for it,
and its idolatrous priests shall wail over it,
over its glory which has departed from it.
⁶Yea, the thing itself shall be carried to Assyria,
as tribute to the great king.
Ephraim shall be put to shame,
and Israel shall be ashamed of his idol.

⁷Samaria's king shall perish,
like a chip on the face of the waters.
⁸The high places of Aven, the sin of Israel,
shall be destroyed.
Thorn and thistle shall grow up
on their altars;
and they shall say to the mountains, Cover us,
and to the hills, Fall upon us.

The LORD pronounces judgement on Israel.

⁹From the days of Gibeah, you have sinned, O Israel;
there they have continued.
Shall not war overtake them in Gibeah?
¹⁰I will come against the wayward people to chastise them;
and nations shall be gathered against them
when they are chastised for their double iniquity.

¹¹Ephraim was a trained heifer
that loved to thresh,
and I spared her fair neck;
but I will put Ephraim to the yoke,
Judah must plow,
Jacob must harrow for himself.
¹²Sow for yourselves righteousness,
reap the fruit of steadfast love;
break up your fallow ground,
for it is the time to seek Yahweh,
that he may come and rain salvation upon you.

¹³You have plowed iniquity,
you have reaped injustice,
you have eaten the fruit of lies.
Because you have trusted in your chariots
and in the multitude of your warriors,
¹⁴therefore the tumult of war shall arise among your people,
and all your fortresses shall be destroyed,
as Shalman destroyed Beth-arbel on the day of battle;
mothers were dashed in pieces with their children.
¹⁵Thus it shall be done to you, O house of Israel,
because of your great wickedness.
In the storm the king of Israel
shall be utterly cut off.

God's love for his rebellious people.

³Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
I took them up in my arms;
but they did not know that I healed them.
⁴I led them with cords of compassion,
with the bands of love,
and I became to them as one,
who eases the yoke on their jaws,
and I bent down to them and fed them.

⁵They shall return to the land of Egypt,
and Assyria shall be their king,
because they have refused to return to me.
⁶The sword shall rage against their cities,
consume the bars of their gates,
and devour them in their fortresses.
⁷My people are bent on turning away from me;
so they are appointed to the yoke,
and none shall remove it.

⁸How can I give you up, O Ephraim!
How can I hand you over, O Israel!
How can I make you like Admah!
How can I treat you like Zeboiim!
My heart recoils within me,
my compassion grows warm and tender.
⁹I will not execute my fierce anger,
I will not again destroy Ephraim;
for I am God and not man,
the Holy One in your midst,
and I will not come to destroy.

¹⁰They shall go after Yahweh,
he will roar like a lion;
yea, he will roar,
and his sons shall come trembling from the west;
¹¹they shall come trembling like birds from Egypt,
and like doves from the land of Assyria;
and I will return them to their homes, says Yahweh.

Both Israel & Judah are condemned.

¹²Ephraim has encompassed me with lies,
and the house of Israel with deceit;
but Judah is still known by God,
and is faithful to the Holy One.

²Yahweh has an indictment against Judah,
and will punish Jacob according to his ways,
and requite him according to his deeds.
³In the womb he took his brother by the heel,
and in his manhood he strove with God.
⁴He strove with the angel and prevailed,
he wept and sought his favour.
He met God at Bethel,
and there God spoke with him -
⁵Yahweh the God of hosts,
Yahweh is his name:
⁶"So you, by the help of your God, return,
hold fast to love and justice,
and wait continually for your God."

⁷A trader, in whose hands are false balances,
he loves to oppress.
⁸Ephraim has said, "Ah, but I am rich,
I have gained wealth for myself":
but all his riches can never offset
the guilt he has incurred.
⁹I am Yahweh your God from the land of Egypt;
I will again make you dwell in tents,
as in the days of the appointed feast.

¹⁰I spoke to the prophets;
it was I who multiplied visions,
and through the prophets gave parables.
¹¹If there is iniquity in Gilead
they shall surely come to nought;
if in Gilgal they sacrifice bulls,
their altars also shall be like stone heaps
on the furrows of the field.
¹²(Jacob fled to the land of Aram,
there Israel did service for a wife,
and for a wife he herded sheep.)
¹³By a prophet Yahweh brought Israel up from Egypt,
and by a prophet he was preserved.
¹⁴Ephraim has given bitter provocation;
so his LORD will leave his bloodguilt upon him,
and will turn back upon him his reproaches.

Final judgement on Israel.

⁴I am Yahweh your God
from the land of Egypt;
you know no God but me,
and besides me there is no saviour.
⁵It was I who knew you in the wilderness,
in the land of drought;
⁶but when they had fed to the full,
they were filled, and their heart was lifted up;
therefore they forgot me.
⁷So I will be to them like a lion,
like a leopard I will lurk beside the way.
⁸I will fall upon them like a bear robbed of her cubs,
I will tear open their breast,
and there I will devour them like a lion,
as a wild beast would rend them.

⁹I will destroy you, O Israel;
who can help you?
¹⁰Where now is your king, to save you;
where are all your princes, to defend you -
those of whom you said,
"Give me a king and princes"?
¹¹I have given you kings in my anger,
and I have taken them away in my wrath.

¹²The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up,
his sin is kept in store.
¹³The pangs of childbirth come for him,
but he is an unwise son;
for now he does not present himself
at the mouth of the womb.

¹⁴Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol?
Shall I redeem them from Death?
O Death, where are your plagues?
O Sheol, where is your destruction?
Compassion is hid from my eyes.

¹⁵Though he may flourish as the reed plant,
the east wind, the wind of Yahweh, shall come,
rising from the wilderness;
and his fountain shall dry up,
his spring shall be parched;
it shall strip his treasury
of every precious thing.
¹⁶Samaria shall bear her guilt,
because she has rebelled against her God;
they shall fall by the sword,
their little ones shall be dashed in pieces,
and their pregnant women ripped open.

Hosea's plea to Israel.

the LORD promises new life for Israel.

⁴I will heal their faithlessness;
I will love them freely,
for my anger has turned from them.
⁵I will be as the dew to Israel;
he shall blossom as the lily,
he shall strike root as the poplar;
⁶his shoots shall spread out;
his beauty shall be like the olive,
and his fragrance like Lebanon.
⁷They shall return and dwell beneath my shadow,
they shall flourish as a garden;
they shall blossom as the vine,
their fragrance shall be like the wine of Lebanon.
⁸O Ephraim, what have I to do with idols?
It is I who answer and look after you.
I am like an evergreen cypress,
from me comes your fruit.

Conclusion.

⁹Whoever is wise,
let him understand these things;
whoever is discerning,
let him know them;
for the ways of Yahweh are right,
and the upright walk in them,
but transgressors stumble in them.

Notes: This webpage enables you to select-a-version from the Bible versions held on the katapi bible database.
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The katapi New Standard Bible is a very light revision of the RSV. The changes are: (1) In places where 'the LORD', 'O LORD' occurs in the RSV, (it represents the tetragrammaton - YHWH - which is in the hebrew text), I have used the name 'Yahweh'.
(2) I have removed the quotation marks and hyphens that were used in so many names in the RSV as an aid to correct pronunciation. This now brings it in line with all other English versions, and makes any word-search more accurate.
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Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1952 [2nd edition, 1971], Apocrypha, copyright 1957; The Third and Fourth Books of the Maccabees and Psalm 151, copyright 1977, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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