Hosea 9

¹Rejoice not, O Israel ! Exult not like the peoples ; for you have played the whore , forsaking your God . You have loved a prostitute’s wages on all threshing floors .

²Threshing floor and wine vat shall not feed them, and the new wine shall fail them.

³They shall not remain in the land of the Lord, but Ephraim shall return to Egypt , and they shall eat unclean food in Assyria .

⁴They shall not pour drink offerings of wine to the Lord, and their sacrifices shall not please him. It shall be mourners ’ bread to them; all who eat of it shall be defiled ; for their bread shall be for their hunger only; it shall not come to the house of the Lord.

⁵What will you do on the day of the appointed festival, and on the day of the feast of the Lord?

⁶For behold , they are going away from destruction ; but Egypt shall gather them; Memphis shall bury them. Nettles shall possess their precious things of silver ; thorns shall be in their tents .

⁷The days of punishment have come ; the days of recompense have come ; Israel shall know it. The prophet is a fool ; the man of the spirit is mad , because of your great iniquity and great hatred .

⁸The prophet is the watchman of Ephraim with my God ; yet a fowler’s snare is on all his ways , and hatred 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 their sins .

¹⁰Like grapes in the wilderness , I found Israel . Like the first fruit on the fig tree in its first season , I saw your fathers . But they came to Baal-peor and consecrated themselves to the thing of shame , and became detestable like the thing they loved .

¹¹Ephraim’s glory shall fly away like a bird — no birth , no pregnancy , no conception !

¹²Even if they bring up children , I will bereave them till none is left. Woe to them when I depart from them!

¹³Ephraim , as I have seen , was like a young palm planted in a meadow ; but Ephraim must lead his children out to slaughter .

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

¹⁵Every evil of theirs is Gilgal ; there I began to hate 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 stricken ; their root is dried up ; they shall bear no fruit . Even though they give birth , I will put their beloved children to death .

¹⁷My God will reject them because they have not listened to him; they shall be wanderers among the nations .