Hosea 9

¹Don’t rejoice, Israel, to jubilation like the nations; for you were unfaithful to your God. You love the wages of a prostitute at every grain threshing floor.

²The threshing floor and the wine press won’t feed them, and the new wine will fail her.

³They won’t dwell in Yahweh’s land; but Ephraim will return to Egypt, and they will eat unclean food in Assyria.

⁴They won’t pour out wine offerings to Yahweh, neither will they be pleasing to him. Their sacrifices will be to them like the bread of mourners; all who eat of it will be polluted; for their bread will be for their appetite. It will not come into Yahweh’s house.

⁵What will you do in the day of solemn assembly, and in the day of the feast of Yahweh?

⁶For, behold, when they flee destruction, Egypt will gather them up. Memphis will bury them. Nettles will possess their pleasant things of silver. Thorns will be in their tents.

⁷The days of visitation have come. The days of reckoning have come. Israel will consider the prophet to be a fool, and the man who is inspired to be insane, because of the abundance of your sins, and because your hostility is great.

⁸A prophet watches over Ephraim with my God. A fowler’s snare is on all of his paths, and hostility in the house of his God.

⁹They have deeply corrupted themselves, as in the days of Gibeah. He will remember their iniquity. He will punish them for their sins.

¹⁰I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness. I saw your fathers as the first ripe in the fig tree at its first season; but they came to Baal Peor, and consecrated themselves to the shameful thing, and became abominable like that which they loved.

¹¹As for Ephraim, their glory will fly away like a bird. There will be no birth, no one with child, and no conception.

¹²Though they bring up their children, yet I will bereave them, so that not a man shall be left. Indeed, woe also to them when I depart from them!

¹³I have seen Ephraim, like Tyre, planted in a pleasant place; but Ephraim will bring out his children to the murderer.

¹⁴Give them—Yahweh what will you give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.

¹⁵“All their wickedness is in Gilgal; for there I hated them. 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.

¹⁶Ephraim is struck. Their root has dried up. They will bear no fruit. Even though they give birth, yet I will kill the beloved ones of their womb.”

¹⁷My God will cast them away, because they didn’t listen to him; and they will be wanderers among the nations.