Hosea 9:1-9 ▼

1 Israel, do not rejoice jubilantly as the nations do, for you have acted promiscuously, leaving your God. You love the wages of a prostitute on every grain-threshing floor.

2 Threshing floor and wine vat will not sustain them, and the new wine will fail them.

3 They will not stay in the land of the LORD. Instead, Ephraim will return to Egypt, and they will eat unclean food in Assyria.

4 They will not pour out their wine offerings to the LORD, and their sacrifices will not please him. Their food will be like the bread of mourners; all who eat it become defiled. For their bread will be for their appetites alone; it will not enter the house of the LORD.

5 What will you do on a festival day, on the day of the LORD’s feast?

6 For even if they flee from devastation, Egypt will gather them, and Memphis will bury them. Thistles will take possession of their precious silver; thorns will invade their tents.

7 The days of punishment have come; the days of retribution have come. Let Israel recognize it! The prophet is a fool, and the inspired man is insane, because of the magnitude of your iniquity and hostility.

8 Ephraim’s watchman is with my God. Yet the prophet encounters a bird trap on all his pathways. Hostility is in the house of his God!

9 They have deeply corrupted themselves as in the days of Gibeah. He will remember their iniquity; he will punish their sins.