Hosea 9

Listen to Hosea 9
1 Don't rejoice, Israel, to jubilation like the nations; For you were unfaithful to your God. You love the wages of a prostitute at every grain threshing floor.
2 The threshing floor and the winepress won't feed them, And the new wine will fail her.
3 They won't dwell in Yahweh's land; But Ephraim will return to Egypt, And they will eat unclean food in Assyria.
4 They won't pour out wine offerings to Yahweh, Neither will they be pleasing to him. Their sacrifices will be to them like the bread of mourners; All who eat of it will be polluted; For their bread will be for their appetite. It will not come into the house of Yahweh.
5 What will you do in the day of solemn assembly, And in the day of the feast of Yahweh?
6 For, behold, they have gone away from destruction. Egypt will gather them up. Memphis will bury them. Nettles will possess their pleasant things of silver. Thorns will be in their tents.
7 The days of visitation have come. The days of reckoning have come. Israel will consider the prophet to be a fool, And the man who is inspired to be insane, Because of the abundance of your sins, And because your hostility is great.
8 A prophet watches over Ephraim with my God. A fowler's snare is on all of his paths, And hostility 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 them for their sins.
10 I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness. I saw your fathers as the first ripe in the fig tree at its first season; But they came to Baal-peor, and consecrated themselves to the shameful thing, And became abominable like that which they loved.
11 As for Ephraim, their glory will fly away like a bird. There will be no birth, none with child, and no conception.
12 Though they bring up their children, Yet I will bereave them, so that not a man shall be left. Indeed, woe also to them when I depart from them!
13 Ephraim, like I have seen Tyre, is planted in a pleasant place; But Ephraim will bring out his children to the killer.
14 Give them -- Yahweh what will you give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.
15 "All their wickedness is in Gilgal; For there I hated them. Because of the wickedness of their deeds I will drive them out of my house! I will love them no more. All their princes are rebels.
16 Ephraim is struck. Their root has dried up. They will bear no fruit. Even though they bring forth, yet I will kill the beloved ones of their womb."
17 My God will cast them away, because they did not listen to him; And they will be wanderers among the nations.

Hosea 9 Commentaries

The World English Bible is in the public domain.