Hosea 9:1-17
9 “Do not rejoice, O Israel.+ Do not act joyful like the peoples.+ For by fornication you have gone from alongside your God.+ You have loved gifts of hire on all the threshing floors of grain.+
2 Threshing floor and winepress do not feed them,+ and sweet wine itself proves disappointing to her.+
3 They will not continue dwelling in the land of Jehovah,+ and Eʹphra·im must return to Egypt,+ and in As·syrʹi·a they will eat what is unclean.+
4 They will not continue pouring out wine to Jehovah.+ And their sacrifices will not be gratifying to him;+ they are like the bread of times of mourning+ to them; all those eating it will defile themselves. For their bread is for their own soul;* it will not come into the house of Jehovah.+
5 What will YOU people do in the day of meeting and in the day of the festival of Jehovah?+
6 For, look! they will have to go because of despoiling.+ Egypt itself will collect them together;+ Memʹphis,*+ for its part, will bury them. As for their desirable things of silver, nettles themselves will take possession of them;+ thorny bushes will be in their tents.+
7 “The days of being given attention must come;+ the days of the due payment must come.+ Those of Israel will know [it].+ The prophet will be foolish,+ the man of inspired expression* will be maddened on account of the abundance of your error,+ even animosity being abundant.”
8 The watchman+ of Eʹphra·im was with my God.*+ As regards a prophet,+ there is the trap of a birdcatcher on all his ways;+ there is an animosity in the house of his God.
9 They have gone down deep in bringing ruin,*+ as in the days of Gibʹe·ah.+ He will remember their error;+ he will give attention to their sins.
10 “Like grapes in the wilderness I found Israel.+ Like the early fig on a fig tree in its beginning I saw the forefathers of YOU people.+ They themselves went in to Baʹal of Peʹor,*+ and they proceeded to dedicate themselves to* the shameful thing,+ and they came to be disgusting like [the thing of] their love.+
11 As regards Eʹphra·im, like a flying creature their glory flies away,+ so that there is no giving birth, and no [pregnant] belly and no conception.+
12 For although they bring up their sons, I will also bereave them of children so that there will be no man;+ because—woe also to them when I turn away from them!+
13 Eʹphra·im, whom I have seen like Tyre planted in a pasture ground,+ even Eʹphra·im is destined to a bringing out of his sons even to a killer.”+
14 Give to them, O Jehovah, what you should give.+ Give them a miscarrying womb+ and breasts shriveling up.
15 “All their badness was in Gilʹgal,+ for there I had to hate them.+ On account of the evil of their dealings I shall drive them away from my own house.+ I will not continue on loving them.+ All their princes are acting stubborn.+
16 Eʹphra·im must be struck down.+ Their very root must dry up.+ There will be no fruit that they produce.+ Also, in case they bring to birth, I will even put to death the desirable things of their belly.”+
17 My God*+ will reject them, for they have not listened to him,+ and they will become fugitives among the nations.+
Footnotes
^ Or, “for their own selves.” Heb., lenaph·shamʹ; Gr., tais psy·khaisʹ au·tonʹ; Lat., aʹni·mae i·psoʹrum. See App 4A.
^ “Memphis.” Gr. and Lat., Memʹphis; Heb., Moph; T(Aram.), leMa·phehsʹ; Syr., u·Ma·phes.
^ Or, “man of inspiration.” Lit., “man of the spirit.” Heb., ʼish ha·ruʹach; Gr., anʹthro·pos ho pneu·ma·to·phoʹros, “man bearing the spirit; man inspired”; Vgc(Lat.), viʹrum spi·ri·tu·aʹlem.
^ “My God.” Heb., ʼElo·haiʹ.
^ Lit., “They have made [it] deep, they have brought [it] to ruin,” M; possibly, by a correction, “They have made his pit deep.”
^ Or, “Baal-peor.”
^ Or, “to withdraw themselves to; to hold themselves separate for.”
^ “My God.” Heb., ʼElo·haiʹ.
