< Hosea 13 >
1 “When Ephraim speaks tremblingly, He has been lifted up in Israel, When he becomes guilty in Ba‘al he dies.
2 And now they sin, And make for themselves a molten image of their silver, By their own understanding—idols, A work of artisans—all of it, Of them they say, who [are] sacrificers among men, The calves let them kiss.
3 Therefore they are as a cloud of the morning, And as dew, rising early, going away, As chaff tossed about out of a floor, And as smoke out of a window.
4 And I [am] your God YHWH from the land of Egypt, And you do not know a God besides Me, And a Savior—there is none except Me.
5 I have known you in a wilderness, In a land of droughts.
6 They are satiated according to their feedings, They have been satiated, And their heart is lifted up, Therefore they have forgotten Me,
7 And I am to them as a lion, I look out as a leopard by the way.
8 I meet them as a bereaved bear, And I tear the enclosure of their heart, And I consume them there as a lioness, A beast of the field tears them.
9 You have destroyed yourself, O Israel, But in Me [is] your help;
10 Where [is] your king now—And he saves you in all your cities? And your judges of whom you said, Give a king and heads to me?
11 I give to you a king in My anger, And I take away in My wrath.
12 Bound up [is] the iniquity of Ephraim, Hidden [is] his sin,
13 Pangs of a travailing woman come to him, He [is] not a wise son, For he does not remain [at] the time for the breaking forth of sons.
14 Will I ransom them from the hand of Sheol? Will I redeem them from death? Where [is] your plague, O death? Where your destruction, O Sheol? Comfort is hid from My eyes. (Sheol )
15 Though he produces fruit among brothers, An east wind comes in, a wind of YHWH, From a wilderness it is coming up, And it dries up his fountain, And his spring becomes dry, It—it spoils a treasure—every desirable vessel.
16 Samaria becomes desolate, Because she has been rebellious against her God, They fall by sword, Their sucklings are dashed in pieces, And its pregnant ones are ripped up!”
