Hosea

¹ wiped the slate clean and got them going again, Ephraim soon filled the slate with new sins, the treachery of Samaria written out in bold print. Two-faced and double-tongued, they steal you blind, pick you clean.

² that I keep account of their every crime. They're mud-spattered head to toe with the residue of sin. I see who they are and what they've done.

³ delight the princes with their acrobatic lies.

⁴ like an oven that holds its heat From the kneading of the dough to the rising of the bread.

⁵ on wine and the frenzy of the mocking mob.

⁶ red-hot with lust. Through the night their passion is banked; in the morning it blazes up, flames hungrily licking.

⁷ they incinerate their rulers. Their kings fall one by one, and no one pays any attention to me.

⁸ Ephraim is half-baked.

⁹ but he doesn't even notice. His hair has turned gray— he doesn't notice.

¹⁰ Israel's a public disgrace. Israel lumbers along oblivious to God, despite all the signs, ignoring God.

¹¹ mindless, clueless, First chirping after Egypt, then fluttering after Assyria.

¹² I'll teach them to mind me!

¹³ Now they're really in trouble! They've defied me. And I'm supposed to help them while they feed me a line of lies?

¹⁴ they whoop it up in bed with their whores, Gash themselves bloody in their sex-and-religion orgies, but turn their backs on me.

¹⁵ and how am I repaid? With evil scheming!

¹⁶ turn here, then there, like a weather vane. Their rulers will be cut down, murdered— just deserts for their mocking blasphemies. And the final sentence? Ridicule in the court of world opinion.