Hosea 6

1 Come, let us go back to the Lord; for he has given us wounds and he will make us well; he has given blows and he will give help.

In their affliction they will seek me early, saying, Let us go, and return to the Lord our God; for he has torn, and will heal us; he will strike, and bind us up.

2 After two days he will give us life, and on the third day he will make us get up, and we will be living before him.

After two days he will heal us: in the third day we shall arise, and live before him, and shall know [him]:

3 And let us have knowledge, let us go after the knowledge of the Lord; his going out is certain as the dawn, his decisions go out like the light; he will come to us like the rain, like the spring rain watering the earth.

let us follow on to know the Lord: we shall find him ready as the morning, and he will come to us as the early and latter rain to the earth.

4 O Ephraim, what am I to do to you? O Judah, what am I to do to you? For your love is like a morning cloud, and like the dew which goes early away.

What shall I do to you, Ephraim? What shall I do to you, Juda? whereas your mercy is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew that goes away.

5 So I have had it cut in stones; I gave them teaching by the words of my mouth;

Therefore have I mown down your prophets; I have slain them with the word of my mouth: and my judgement shall go forth as the light.

6 Because my desire is for mercy and not offerings; for the knowledge of God more than for burned offerings.

For I will [have] mercy rather than sacrifice, and the knowledge of God rather than whole burnt offerings.

7 But like a man, they have gone against the agreement; there they were false to me.

But they are as a man transgressing a covenant:

8 Gilead is a town of evil-doers, marked with blood.

there the city Galaad despised me, working vanity, troubling water.

9 And like a band of thieves waiting for a man, so are the priests watching secretly the way of those going quickly to Shechem, for they are working with an evil design.

And your strength [is that] of a robber: the priests have hid the way, they have murdered [the people of] Sicima; for they have wrought iniquity in the house of Israel.

10 In Israel I have seen a very evil thing; there false ways are seen in Ephraim, Israel is unclean;

I have seen horrible [things] there, [even] the fornication of Ephraim: Israel and Juda are defiled;

11 And Judah has put up disgusting images for himself.

begin together grapes for yourself, when I turn the captivity of my people.