Hosea 9:7-17 ▼

7 They have come, the days of punishment! they have come, the days of recompense! Let Israel know it! “The prophet is a fool, the man of the spirit is mad!” Because your iniquity is great, great, too, is your hostility.

8 The watchman of Ephraim, the people of my God, is the prophet; yet a fowler’s snare is on all his ways, hostility in the house of his God.

9 They have sunk to the depths of corruption, as in the days of Gibeah; God will remember their iniquity and punish their sins.

10 Like grapes in the desert, I found Israel; Like the first fruits of the fig tree, its first to ripen, I looked on your ancestors. But when they came to Baal-peor and consecrated themselves to the Shameful One, they became as abhorrent as the thing they loved.

11 Ephraim is like a bird: their glory flies away— no birth, no pregnancy, no conception.

12 Even though they bring up their children, I will make them childless, until no one is left. Indeed, woe to them when I turn away from them!

13 Ephraim, as I saw, was a tree planted in a meadow; But now Ephraim will bring out his children to the slaughterer!

14 Give them, LORD! give them what? Give them a miscarrying womb, and dry breasts!

15 All their misfortune began in Gilgal; yes, there I rejected them. Because of their wicked deeds I will drive them out of my house. I will love them no longer; all their princes are rebels.

16 Ephraim is stricken, their root is dried up; they will bear no fruit. Were they to bear children, I would slay the beloved of their womb.

17 My God will disown them because they have not listened to him; they will be wanderers among the nations.