Hosea
Chapter 9
1 Do not celebrate, Israel, like other nations, because you have been unfaithful to God, loving the rewards you get on every threshing floor.
2 The ground and the wine-making place won’t provide for them, and the fresh wine will disappoint her.
3 They will not live in God’s land; but Ephraim will go back to Egypt, and they will eat impure food in Assyria.
4 They must not give wine offerings to God, nor will these please him. Their sacrifices will be like mourning bread; whoever eats it will be unclean. Their bread for their life cannot enter God’s house.
5 What will you do on the sacred day, and on the day of God’s feast?
6 Look, they have left because they were destroyed. Egypt will collect their bodies, and Memphis will bury them. The nice spots where they kept their money will be taken over by weeds, and thorns will fill their homes.
7 The time for punishment has come, the time for payback is here; Israel will realize this: the prophet is senseless, the spiritual person is insane, because of your many sins and intense hatred.
8 Ephraim’s guard was with my God, but the prophet is like a hunter’s trap on every path, and there is hate in God’s house.
9 They have become very corrupt, like in Gibeah’s time: so God will remember their wrongs, and he will punish their sins.
10 I found Israel like grapes in the desert; I saw your ancestors as the first fruit on the fig tree at its first season: but they went to Baalpeor, turned to that disgrace, and their shameful acts were as they desired.
11 Ephraim’s honor will vanish like a bird, from birth, from pregnancy, and from conception.
12 Even if they raise their children, I will take them away until none are left. And it will be bad for them when I leave them.
13 Ephraim is like the city Tyre, set in a nice area, but Ephraim will lead his children to the killer.
14 God, give them what you will give; give them wombs that cannot bear children and breasts that are dry.
15 All their bad acts are in Gilgal; there I began to hate them. Because they keep doing evil, I will force them out of my house and stop loving them; all their leaders are rebels.
16 Ephraim is struck down, their roots are dried up, they will not bear fruit. Even if they do produce, I will kill the precious offspring from their womb.
17 God will reject them because they did not listen to him, and they will wander among the nations.