Hosea 4:1-9:9

New Catholic Bible

¹ Hear the word of the Lord,
    people of Israel,
for the Lord has decreed an indictment
    against the inhabitants of the land.
There is no faithfulness or loyalty,
    nor any knowledge of God in the land.
² Instead, people swear oaths and break them;
    they lie, murder, steal, and commit adultery,
    with never-ceasing bloodshed.
³ Therefore, the land is in mourning,
    and all who dwell in it languish,
including the wild beasts and the birds of the air;
    even the fish of the sea are perishing.

⁴ But let no one protest
    or make accusations;
    my quarrel is with you, O priests.
⁵ You shall stumble in the daylight,
    while the prophets will stumble with you at night,
    and I will destroy your mother.
⁶ My people are perishing
    for want of knowledge.
Because you have rejected knowledge,
    I will reject you as my priests.
And since you have forsaken the law of your God,
    I will also reject your children.
⁷ The more the number of priests increased,
    the more they sinned against me,
    turning their glory into shame.
⁸ They feed on the sins of my people;
    they are insatiable in their hunger for iniquity.
⁹ The priests and the people will share the same fate;
    I shall punish them for their conduct
    and repay them for their deeds.
¹⁰ They will eat but never be satisfied;
    they will engage in prostitution but never have children,
because they have abandoned the Lord
¹¹     to devote themselves to immorality.

Wine, both old and new,
    deprives my people of understanding.
¹² They consult a piece of wood for advice,
    and their divining rod^[a] provides the answers they seek.
For a spirit of promiscuity has led them astray,
    and their immorality causes them to forsake their God.
¹³ They offer sacrifice on the mountaintops
    and burn incense on the hills,
beneath oak and poplar and terebinth
    because the shade they afford is pleasant.
¹⁴ I shall not punish your daughters for becoming prostitutes
    or your daughters-in-law for committing adultery.
For your men themselves consort with harlots
    and offer sacrifice with temple prostitutes;
    a people thus devoid of understanding is doomed.
¹⁵ Though you, O Israel, play the whore,
    do not allow Judah to incur such guilt.
Do not come to Gilgal
    or go up to Beth-aven,
    and do not swear, “As the Lord lives!”^[b]
16 For Israel is as stubborn as a heifer;
    will the Lord now feed them
    like lambs in a broad meadow?
¹⁷ Ephraim has associated with idols;
    let them alone.
¹⁸ When their drinking binge has ended,
    they indulge in sexual orgies,
    preferring lewdness to their glory.
¹⁹ The wind has carried them off in its wings,
    and their sacrifices will only bring them shame.

¹ Hear this, O priests!
    Listen closely, O house of Israel!
Give heed, O house of the king,
    for you will be called to judgment!
For you have been a snare at Mizpah,^[c]
    and a net spread out upon Tabor,
² and a deep pit at Shittim;
    I shall punish all of them.
³ I know Ephraim,
    and Israel is not hidden from me.
Despite this, O Ephraim, you have played the harlot,
    and Israel is defiled.
⁴ Their deeds do not allow them
    to return to their God.
For the spirit of immorality has possessed them,
    and they no longer know the Lord.
⁵ Israel’s arrogance testifies against them;
    Ephraim stumbles in their guilt,
    and Judah stumbles with them.
⁶ With their sheep and their cattle,
    they shall go forth to seek the Lord.
However, they will not find him,
    for he has withdrawn from them.
⁷ They have betrayed the Lord,
    for they have borne illegitimate children.^[d]
Now the new moon shall devour them
    along with their fields.

⁸ Blow the horn in Gibeah,^[f]
    the trumpet in Ramah.
Sound the alarm at Beth-aven:
    “Look behind you, O Benjamin!”
⁹ Ephraim shall become a wasteland
    on the day of punishment.
Against the tribes of Israel
    I have decreed certain doom.
¹⁰ The rulers of Judah act like men
    who move their neighbor’s boundary line.
On them I will pour out
    my wrath like a flood.
¹¹ Ephraim is oppressed, crushed in judgment,
    being intent on pursuing idols.
¹² Therefore, I am like an infectious sore for Ephraim,
    like maggots for the house of Judah.
¹³ When Ephraim realized that he was ill
    and Judah noted that he was covered with sores,
Ephraim went to Assyria,
    and Judah sent envoys to the great king.
However, he has no power to cure you
    or to heal your sores.
¹⁴ For I will be like a lion to Ephraim,
    like a young lion to the house of Judah.
I myself will maul them and depart;
    I will carry them off,
    and no one will be able to rescue them.
¹⁵ I shall go back to my dwelling place
    until they acknowledge their guilt
    and seek my presence.^[g]
In their affliction,
    they will beseech my favor.

^1 [h]“Come, let us return to the Lord;
    he has wounded us, but he will heal us;
    he has struck us down, but he will bind up our wounds.
² After two days he will revive us;
    on the third day^[i] he will raise us up
    to live in his presence.
³ Let us know the Lord;
    let us strive to know him.
His coming is as sure as the dawn;
    he will come to us like a shower,
    like the spring rains that water the earth.”
⁴ What can I do with you, Ephraim?
    What can I do with you, Judah?
Your love is like a morning mist,
    like the dew that quickly evaporates.
⁵ That is the reason why I cut them to pieces
    by means of the prophets.
I have slaughtered them by the word of my mouth,
    and my judgment goes forth like the dawn.
⁶ For steadfast love rather than sacrifice is what pleases me,
    and knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

⁷ But in their land^[j] they broke the covenant;
    it was there that they were unfaithful to me.
⁸ Gilead^[k] is a city of evildoers,
    stained with bloody footprints.
⁹ Like robbers waiting in ambush,
    priests are banded together.
They commit murder on the road to Shechem,
    perpetrating monstrous crimes.
¹⁰ I have witnessed a horrible thing
    in the house of Israel.
There Ephraim engages in prostitution
    and Israel is defiled.
¹¹ And for you also, O Judah,
    a harvest of reprisal has been designated.^[l]

¹ Whenever I decide to restore the fortunes of my people
    and prepare to heal Israel,
the guilt of Ephraim confronts me
    as well as the wicked deeds of Samaria.
They practice deceit;
    thieves break into houses
    while bandits plunder in the streets.^[m]
2 But they somehow fail to remind themselves
    that I remember all their wickedness.
I will not forget their wicked deeds;
    they are constantly before my eyes.

³ They delight the king with their wickedness
    and the princes with their treachery.
⁴ All of them are adulterers;
    they are like an oven all ablaze
whose fire the baker does not need to stoke
    from the kneading of the dough until it has risen.
⁵ On the festal day of their king,
    the princes become inflamed with wine
while the king extends his hand
    to those who mock him.^[n]
6 For they are heated like ovens
    while their heart burns within them.
All through the night their passion slumbers;
    in the morning it blazes forth like a flaming fire.
⁷ All of them are as hot as ovens,
    and they consume their rulers.
All their kings have fallen;
    not one of them calls out to me.

⁸ Ephraim mixes with the nations;
    Ephraim is a half-baked cake.^[o]
9 Foreigners have sapped his strength,
    but he is unaware of it.
His hair is beginning to turn gray,
    but he does not realize it.
¹⁰ Israel’s arrogance testifies against them,
    but despite all this,
they do not return to the Lord, their God,
    nor do they seek him.
¹¹ Ephraim has become like a dove,
    silly and without any sense.
They call upon Egypt;
    they turn to Assyria.
¹² Wherever they turn,
    I will cast my net over them.
I will bring them down
    like birds of the sky.
I will discipline them
    because of their evil deeds.
¹³ Woe to them,
    for they have strayed from me!
Destruction to them,
    for they have rebelled against me!
I longed to redeem them,
    but they continued to tell lies about me.
¹⁴ They have not cried out to me from their hearts
    while they wailed upon their beds.
When they gash themselves to obtain grain and new wine,^[p]
    they are still rebelling against me.
¹⁵ Even though I supported and strengthened them,
    they devise evil plots against me.
¹⁶ Everything they devise is of no avail;
    they are like a defective bow.
Their leaders will fall by the sword
    because of their insolent words.
As a result, they will be ridiculed
    in the land of Egypt.

¹ Put the trumpet to your lips!
    An eagle is circling over the sanctuary of the Lord.
The people have broken my covenant
    and been unfaithful to my law.
² Israel cries out to me,
    “We acknowledge you to be our God.”
³ However, Israel has rejected what is good;
    the enemy will pursue them.
^4 [q]They anointed kings, but not by my authority;
    they appointed princes, but without my knowledge.
With their silver and gold they made idols for themselves,
    idols for their own destruction.
⁵ I reject your calf-idol, O Samaria!
    My anger burns against them.
How long will it be
    before they regain their innocence?
⁶ The calf was made in Israel;
    it is no god at all,
    for it was fashioned by a craftsman.
The calf of Samaria
    will be broken to pieces.
⁷ When Israel sows the wind,
    it will reap the whirlwind.
When the standing grain has no heads,
    it will yield no flour.
And if it were to yield flour,
    foreigners would devour it.
⁸ Israel is swallowed up;
    now they are among the nations
    like something of no value.
⁹ For they have gone up to Assyria
    like a wild ass wandering on its own;
    Ephraim has bargained for lovers.
¹⁰ Because they have bargained with the nations,
    I will now gather them up.
They will soon begin to suffer
    under the weight of kings and princes.
¹¹ Although Ephraim built many altars for sin offerings,
    those altars became occasions for sin.
¹² I provided Ephraim with many written laws,
    but they regarded such laws as irrelevant.
¹³ Although they offer sacrifices to me
    and eat the meat,
    the Lord does not accept them.
On the contrary, he will remember their iniquity
    and punish their sins;
    they will be forced to return to Egypt.
¹⁴ Israel has forgotten his Maker
    and built palaces;
Judah also has fortified many cities.
    However, I will send fire upon his cities
    that will devour their citadels.

¹ Do not rejoice, O Israel!
    Do not exult like the other nations!
For you have been unfaithful to your God;
    you have loved the wages of a prostitute
    upon every threshing floor.^[r]
2 Threshing floors and winepresses will not feed them,
    and the new wine will fail them.
³ They will not remain in the land of the Lord;
    Ephraim will return to Egypt^[s]
    and eat unclean food in Assyria.
⁴ No longer will they pour libations of wine to the Lord,
    nor will their sacrifices please him.
To them such sacrifice will be like mourners’ bread
    that defiles all who eat of it.
Whatever food they have will be for them alone;
    it cannot enter the house of the Lord.
⁵ What will you do on the solemn feasts,
    on the festival day of the Lord?^[t]
6 Even if the people escape destruction,
    Egypt will gather them
    and Memphis^[u] will bury them.
Weeds will swallow up their treasures of silver,
    and thorns will overrun their tents.

⁷ The days of punishment have come;
    the days of retribution are here.
Israel cries out,
    “The prophet is a fool,
    the inspired man is a maniac.”
Because your iniquity is great,
    all the greater is your hostility.
⁸ The prophet has been appointed by God
    to serve as a watchman over Ephraim.
Yet snares await him on all his paths
    and he incurs hostility in the house of his God.
⁹ They have immersed themselves in corruption
    as in the days of Gibeah.^[v]
God will remember their iniquity
    and punish their sins.