Hosea 4:9

9 The result: You can't tell the people from the priests, the priests from the people. I'm on my way to make them both pay and take the consequences of the bad lives they've lived.

Hosea 4:9 Meaning and Commentary

Hosea 4:9

And there shall be, like people, like priest
No difference between them in their festivals, the one being as greedy of committing intemperance and uncleanness as the other, and in their common conversation of life; though the priests ought both to have given good instructions, and to have set good examples; but instead of that were equally guilty as the people, and so would be alike in their punishment, as it follows: and I will punish them for their ways;
their evil ways, as the Targum; their wicked manner of life and conversation, both of the people and the priests; especially the latter are meant: or, "I will visit upon him his ways" F23; upon everyone of the priests, as well as the people; which visit must be understood in a way of wrath and vengeance: and reward them their doings;
reward them according to their doings, as their sins deserve, and as it is explained in the next verse: or, "I will return their doings to them" F24; bring them back again, when they seemed to be past and gone, and set them before them, and charge them with them, and punish for them.


FOOTNOTES:

F23 (wykrd wyle ytdqpw) "et visitabo super eum vias ejus", V. L. Pagninus, Montanus, Cocceius, Schmidt.
F24 (wl byva wyllemw) "et opera ejus redire faciam", Zanchius.

Hosea 4:9 In-Context

7 The more priests, the more sin. They traded in their glory for shame.
8 They pig out on my people's sins. They can't wait for the latest in evil.
9 The result: You can't tell the people from the priests, the priests from the people. I'm on my way to make them both pay and take the consequences of the bad lives they've lived.
10 They'll eat and be as hungry as ever, have sex and get no satisfaction. They walked out on me, their God, for a life of rutting with whores. They Make a Picnic Out of Religion
11 "Wine and whiskey leave my people in a stupor.
Published by permission. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.