Hosea 9:1-13 ▼

1 |Don't celebrate, Israel, like other nations would rejoice, because you left your God by committing fornication, loving the profit you gained on all of the threshing floors.

2 Neither threshing floor nor winepress will sustain them, and the new wine will disappoint her.

3 They will not live in the LORD's land— Ephraim will return to Egypt, and they will eat unclean food in Assyria.

4 They won't present wine offerings to the LORD, nor will they please him. Their sacrifices will seem like food for mourners— everyone who eats them will become unclean; none of them will enter the Temple of the LORD.

5 |What will you do on the designated holiday, when the LORD's festival comes?

6 Look! They have gone away because of the destruction— Egypt will gather them up, and Memphis will bury them. Weeds will overgrow their inheritance, and thorns will grow in their tents.

7 The time for your judgment has now come; payday is here— and Israel knows it. The prophet is a fool, and the spiritual man is insane. Because of your great sin, the hatred against you is great.

8 While Ephraim stands watch with my God, the prophet has snares set that will trap his ways, and hostility lodges in the Temple of his God.

9 They have corrupted themselves deeply, as did Gibeah in its day. Therefore God will remember their lawlessness, and he will pay them back for their sins.

10 |I found Israel, as one finds grapes in the wilderness; Your ancestors seemed to me like the fruit gleaned from a fig tree's first harvest. When they went to Baal-peor, they devoted themselves to that filth, and they became loathsome, like what they loved.

11 The glory of Ephraim will fly away like a bird— no birth, no pregnancy, not even a conception.

12 Even if they rear their children, I will, in turn, make them childless— in fact, woe to them when I turn away from them!

13 Ephraim, as I see it, is like Tyre, planted in a comfortable place; Ephraim will bear children but they will be executed.|