Hosea 10:4
Good News Translation
They utter empty words and make false promises and useless treaties. Justice has become injustice, growing like poisonous weeds in a plowed field.

New Revised Standard Version
They utter mere words; with empty oaths they make covenants; so litigation springs up like poisonous weeds in the furrows of the field.

Contemporary English Version
Israel, you break treaties and don't keep promises; you turn justice into poisonous weeds where healthy plants should grow.

New American Bible
They make promises, swear false oaths, and make covenants, While lawsuits sprout like poisonous weeds in the furrows of a field!

Douay-Rheims Bible
You speak words of an unprofitable vision, and you shall make a covenant: and judgment shall spring up as bitterness in the furrows of the field.

Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

You speak words of an unprofitable vision, and you shall make a covenant: and judgment shall spring up as bitterness in the furrows of the field.

swearing.

Hosea 6:7 But they, like Adam, have transgressed the covenant, there have they dealt treacherously against me.

2 Kings 17:3,4 Against him came up Salmanasar, king of the Assyrians; and Osee became his servant, and paid him tribute. . . .

Ezekiel 17:13-19 And he shall take one of the king's seed, and make a covenant with him, and take an oath of him. Yea, and he shall take away the mighty men of the land, . . .

Romans 1:31 Foolish, dissolute: without affection, without fidelity, without mercy.

2 Timothy 3:3 Without affection, without peace, slanderers, incontinent, unmerciful, without kindness,

thus.

Deuteronomy 29:18 Lest perhaps there should be among you a man or a woman, a family or a tribe, whose heart is turned away this day from the Lord our God, to go and serve the gods of those nations: and there should be among you a root bringing forth gall and bitterness.

Isaiah 5:7 For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel: and the man of Juda, his pleasant plant: and I looked that he should do judgment, and behold iniquity: and do justice, and behold a cry.

Isaiah 59:13-15 In sinning and lying against the Lord: and we have turned away so that we went not after our God, but spoke calumny and transgression: we have conceived, and uttered from the heart, words of falsehood. . . .

Amos 5:7 You that turn judgment into wormwood, and forsake justice in the land,

Amos 6:12 For behold the Lord hath commanded, and he will strike the greater house with breaches, and the lesser house with clefts.

Acts 8:23 For I see thou art in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity.

Hebrews 12:15 Looking diligently, lest any man be wanting to the grace of God: lest any root of bitterness springing up do hinder and by it many be defiled:

Revelation 8:10,11 And the third angel sounded the trumpet: and a great star fell from heaven, burning as it were a torch. And it fell on the third part of the rivers and upon the fountains of waters: . . .

Context
Retribution for Israel's Sin
3For now they shall say: We have no king: because we fear not the Lord: and what shall a king do to us? 4You speak words of an unprofitable vision, and you shall make a covenant: and judgment shall spring up as bitterness in the furrows of the field.5The inhabitants of Samaria have worshipped the calf of Bethaven: for the people thereof have mourned over it, and the wardens of its temple that rejoiced over it in its glory because it is departed from it.…
Cross References
Deuteronomy 31:16
And the Lord said to Moses: Behold thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, and this people rising up will go a fornicating after strange gods in the land, to which it goeth in to dwell: there will they forsake me, and will make void the covenant, which I have made with them,

Deuteronomy 31:17
And my wrath shall be kindled against them in that day: and I will forsake them, and will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured: all evils and afflictions shall find them, so that they shall say in that day: In truth it is because God is not with me, that these evils have found me.

2 Kings 17:3
Against him came up Salmanasar, king of the Assyrians; and Osee became his servant, and paid him tribute.

2 Kings 17:4
And when the king of the Assyrians found that Osee, endeavouring to rebel, had sent messengers to Sua, the king of Egypt, that he might not pay tribute to the king of the Assyrians, as he had done every year, he besieged him, bound him, and cast him into prison.

Ezekiel 17:13
And he shall take one of the king's seed, and make a covenant with him, and take an oath of him. Yea, and he shall take away the mighty men of the land,

Hosea 4:2
Cursing, and lying, and killing, and theft, and adultery, have overflowed, and blood hath touched blood.

Amos 5:7
You that turn judgment into wormwood, and forsake justice in the land,

Amos 6:12
For behold the Lord hath commanded, and he will strike the greater house with breaches, and the lesser house with clefts.

Hosea 10:3
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