Hosea

¹ bountiful in grapes. The more lavish the harvest, the more promiscuous the worship. The more money they got, the more they squandered on gods-in-their-own-image.

² They're guilty as sin. God will smash their worship shrines, pulverize their god-images.

³ "Who needs a king? We couldn't care less about God, so why bother with a king? What difference would he make?"

⁴ lie through their teeth, make deals. But their high-sounding words turn out to be empty words, litter in the gutters.

⁵ to worship the golden calf-god. They go all out, prancing and hollering, taken in by their showmen priests. They act so important around the calf-god, but are oblivious to the sham, the shame.

⁶ present it as a gift to the great king. And so Ephraim makes a fool of himself, disgraces Israel with his stupid idols.

⁷ is a dead branch floating down the river.

⁸ will all be torn down. Thistles and crabgrass will decorate their ruined altars. Then they'll say to the mountains, "Bury us!" and to the hills, "Fall on us!"

⁹ that ancient, unspeakable, shocking sin— And you've been at it ever since. And Gibeah will mark the end of it in a war to end all the sinning.

¹⁰ Nations will gang up on them, Making them learn the hard way the sum of Gibeah plus Gibeah.

¹¹ that loved to thresh. Passing by and seeing her strong, sleek neck, I wanted to harness Ephraim, Put Ephraim to work in the fields— Judah plowing, Jacob harrowing:

¹² reap love. It's time to till the ready earth, it's time to dig in with God, Until he arrives with righteousness ripe for harvest.

¹³ reaped a crop of evil and ate a salad of lies. You thought you could do it all on your own, flush with weapons and manpower.

¹⁴ All your defense posts will be leveled As viciously as king Shalman leveled the town of Beth-arba, When mothers and their babies were smashed on the rocks.

¹⁵ because of your off-the-charts evil. Some morning you're going to wake up and find Israel, king and kingdom, a blank—nothing.