<< Hosea 9 >>
New American Standard Bible ©

Ephraim Punished

1 Do not rejoice, O Israel, with exultation like the nations!
 For you have played the harlot, forsaking your God.
 You have loved harlots’ earnings on every threshing floor.
2 Threshing floor and wine press will not feed them,
 And the new wine will fail them.
3 They will not remain in the LORD’S land,
 But Ephraim will return to Egypt,
 And in Assyria they will eat unclean food.
4 They will not pour out drink offerings of wine to the LORD,
 Their sacrifices will not please Him.
 Their bread will be like mourners’ bread;
 All who eat of it will be defiled,
 For their bread will be for themselves alone;
 It will not enter the house of the LORD.
5 What will you do on the day of the appointed festival
 And on the day of the feast of the LORD?
6 For behold, they will go because of destruction;
 Egypt will gather them up, Memphis will bury them.
 Weeds will take over their treasures of silver;
 Thorns will be in their tents.
7 The days of punishment have come,
 The days of retribution have come;
 Let Israel know this!
 The prophet is a fool,
 The inspired man is demented,
 Because of the grossness of your iniquity,
 And because your hostility is so great.
8 Ephraim was a watchman with my God, a prophet;
 Yet the snare of a bird catcher is in all his ways,
 And there is only hostility in the house of his God.
9 They have gone deep in depravity
 As in the days of Gibeah;
 He will remember their iniquity,
 He will punish their sins.
10 I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness;
 I saw your forefathers as the earliest fruit on the fig tree in its first season.
 But they came to Baal-peor and devoted themselves to shame,
 And they became as detestable as that which they loved.
11 As for Ephraim, their glory will fly away like a bird—
 No birth, no pregnancy and no conception!
12 Though they bring up their children,
 Yet I will bereave them until not a man is left.
 Yes, woe to them indeed when I depart from them!
13 Ephraim, as I have seen,
 Is planted in a pleasant meadow like Tyre;
 But Ephraim will bring out his children for slaughter.
14 Give them, O LORD—what will You give?
 Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.
15 All their evil is at Gilgal;
 Indeed, I came to hate them there!
 Because of the wickedness of their deeds
 I will drive them out of My house!
 I will love them no more;
 All their princes are rebels.
16 Ephraim is stricken, their root is dried up,
 They will bear no fruit.
 Even though they bear children,
 I will slay the precious ones of their womb.
17 My God will cast them away
 Because they have not listened to Him;
 And they will be wanderers among the nations.
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