Hosea 9:1-17
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.+
2 But the threshing floor and winepress will not feed them,And new wine will fail her.+
3 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.+
4 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.
5 What will you do in the day of meeting,*In the day of Jehovah’s festival?
6 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.
7 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.”
8 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.
9 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.”