Hosea / Call to Repentance and Persistent Rebellion

Call to Repentance and Persistent Rebellion

Hosea 6:1-7:16

Chapter 6

¹ Come, and let us return to the LORD, for he has torn, and he will heal us; he has struck us, and he will bind us up. ² We will make alive after two days; on the third day he will raise us up and we will live before his face. ³ Let us know, let us pursue knowing the LORD; his coming is prepared like the dawn, and he will come to us like the rain, like the late rain that teaches the land. ⁴ What shall I do with you, Ephraim? What shall I do with you, Judah? Your steadfast love is like a morning cloud and like dew that goes away early. ⁵ Therefore I hewed the prophets; I killed them by the words of my mouth, and your judgments' light went out. ⁶ For steadfast love is my delight and not sacrifice, and knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. ⁷ And they, like Adam, transgressed a covenant there; they betrayed me. ⁸ Gilead, city of the workers of iniquity, was trampled down with blood. ⁹ And like the men of bands, a man of bandits has banded priests the way they murder Shechem for the outrage they have done. ¹⁰ In the house of Israel I have seen a detestable thing; there is prostitution in Ephraim—Israel has defiled itself. ¹¹ Also, I have set a harvest for you also in Judah when I return the captivity of my people.

Chapter 7

¹ When I heal Israel, the iniquity of Ephraim is revealed, and the evils of Samaria; for they commit falsehood, and a thief comes in, a band spreads out outside. ² And they do not say to their hearts, "All their evil I have remembered." Now their deeds have surrounded them; they are before my face. ³ In their moral evil they rejoice—king and princes in their deceits. ⁴ They are all adulterers, like an oven burning from the baker's ceasing to stir the dough until its leavening. ⁵ On the day of our king, the princes profaned themselves with inflamed wine; he extended his hand with mockers. ⁶ For they have drawn near like an oven, their heart in their ambush; all the night their nose sleeps, in the morning it blazes like a fire of flame. ⁷ All of them are hot as an oven, and they devour their judges; all their kings have fallen. None among them calls to me. ⁸ Ephraim mixes himself with the peoples; Ephraim has become a cake not turned. ⁹ Strangers have eaten his strength and he did not know it; also old age has sprinkled him and he did not know it. ¹⁰ And the pride of Israel testifies to his face, but they did not return to the LORD their God, nor did they seek him, in all this. ¹¹ Ephraim has become like a seduced dove without heart; they called to Egypt, they went to Assyria. ¹² As they go, I will spread my net over them like a bird of the heavens; I will bring them down; I will bind them according to their testimony. ¹³ Woe to them, for they have fled from me! Destruction to them, for they have rebelled against me! And I—I will redeem them, and they have spoken lies against me. ¹⁴ And they did not cry to me from their heart; rather, they wail on their couches over grain and new wine. They make themselves sojourners; they turn aside from me. ¹⁵ And I disciplined them, I strengthened their arm, but they devise evil against me. ¹⁶ They will return, but not to the LORD; they are like a deceitful bow. Their rulers will fall by the sword because of the indignation of their tongue—this their mockery—in the land of Egypt.