Chapter 9
Such Sacrifice Will Be Like Mourners’ Bread
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.
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
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?
6 Even if the people escape destruction,
Egypt will gather them
and Memphis will bury them.
Weeds will swallow up their treasures of silver,
and thorns will overrun their tents.
The Prophet Is Ridiculed
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.
God will remember their iniquity
and punish their sins.
At the Roots of the Evil of Israel
The Crimes of Baal-peor and Gilgal
10 It was like finding grapes in the desert
when I found Israel.
When I saw your fathers,
it was like seeing the early frost on a fig tree.
However, when they came to Baal-peor,
they consecrated themselves to a shameful idol,
and they became as loathsome as the thing they loved.
11 Ephraim’s glory will fly away like a bird—
no birth, no pregnancy, no conception.
12 Even if they were to bear children,
I will take away from them every single one.
Woe to them
when I turn away from them!
13 Ephraim once seemed to me like Tyre,
planted in a beautiful meadow.
But now Ephraim will be required
to lead out his children for slaughter.
14 Give them, O Lord—
what will you give?
Give them wombs that miscarry
and dried-up breasts.
15 All of their wickedness had its root in Gilgal;
it was there that I came to hate them.
Because of their evil deeds,
I will drive them out of my house.
I will no longer love them;
all of their rulers are rebels.
16 Ephraim is stricken;
their root is withered,
and they yield no fruit.
Even if they bring forth children,
I will slay the cherished offspring of their womb.
17 My God will cast them off
because they have not listened to him;
they will become wanderers among the nations.
Footnotes
- Hosea 9:1
- Hosea 9:3
- Hosea 9:5
- Hosea 9:6
- Hosea 9:9
- Hosea 9:10
- Hosea 9:14
- Hosea 9:15
