Hosea

¹ Do not rejoice, O Israel; do not be jubilant like the other nations. For you have been unfaithful to your God; you love the wages of a prostitute at every threshing floor.

² the new wine will fail them.

³ Ephraim will return to Egypt and eat unclean food in Assyria.

⁴ nor will their sacrifices please him. Such sacrifices will be to them like the bread of mourners; all who eat them will be unclean. This food will be for themselves; it will not come into the temple of the Lord.

⁵ on the festival days of the Lord?

⁶ Egypt will gather them, and Memphis will bury them. Their treasures of silver will be taken over by briers, and thorns will overrun their tents.

⁷ the days of reckoning are at hand. Let Israel know this. Because your sins are so many and your hostility so great, the prophet is considered a fool, the inspired man a maniac.

⁸ is the watchman over Ephraim, yet snares await him on all his paths, and hostility in the house of his God.

⁹ as in the days of Gibeah. God will remember their wickedness and punish them for their sins.

¹⁰ it was like finding grapes in the desert; when I saw your fathers, it was like seeing the early fruit on the fig tree. But when they came to Baal Peor, they consecrated themselves to that shameful idol and became as vile as the thing they loved.

¹¹ no birth, no pregnancy, no conception.

¹² I will bereave them of every one. Woe to them when I turn away from them!

¹³ planted in a pleasant place. But Ephraim will bring out their children to the slayer.”

¹⁴ what will you give them? Give them wombs that miscarry and breasts that are dry.

¹⁵ I hated them there. Because of their sinful deeds, I will drive them out of my house. I will no longer love them; all their leaders are rebellious.

¹⁶ their root is withered, they yield no fruit. Even if they bear children, I will slay their cherished offspring.”

¹⁷ because they have not obeyed him; they will be wanderers among the nations.