< Hosea 9 >
1 “Do not rejoice, O Israel, do not be joyful like the peoples, For you have gone whoring from your God, You have loved a wage near all floors of grain.
2 Floor and winepress do not feed them, And new wine fails in her,
3 They do not abide in the land of YHWH, And Ephraim has turned back [to] Egypt, And they eat an unclean thing in Asshur.
4 They do not pour out wine to YHWH, Nor are they sweet to Him, Their sacrifices [are] as bread of mourners to them, All eating it are unclean: For their bread [is] for themselves, It does not come into the house of YHWH.
5 What do you do at the day appointed? And at the day of YHWH’s festival?
6 For behold, they have gone because of destruction, Egypt gathers them, Moph buries them, The desirable things of their silver, Nettles possess them—a thorn [is] in their tents.
7 The days of inspection have come in, The days of repayment have come in, Israel knows! The prophet [is] a fool, Mad [is] the man of the spirit, Because of the abundance of your iniquity, And great [is] the hatred.
8 Ephraim is looking [away] from My God, The prophet! A snare of a fowler [is] over all his ways, Hatred [is] in the house of his God.
9 They have gone deep—have done corruptly, As [in] the days of Gibeah, He remembers their iniquity, He inspects their sins.
10 As grapes in a wilderness I found Israel, As the first-fruit in a fig tree, at its beginning, I have seen your fathers, They have gone in [to] Ba‘al-Peor, And are separated to a shameful thing, And have become abominable like their love.
11 Ephraim [is] as a bird, their glory flies away, without birth, and without womb, and without conception.
12 For though they nourish their sons, I have made them childless—without man, Surely also, woe to them when I turn aside from them.
13 Ephraim! When I have looked to the rock, Is planted in comeliness, And Ephraim [is] to bring out his sons to a slayer.
14 Give to them, YHWH—what do You give? Give to them miscarrying womb, and dry breasts.
15 All their evil [is] in Gilgal, Surely there I have hated them, Because of the evil of their doings, Out of My house I drive them, I no longer love them, All their heads [are] apostates.
16 Ephraim has been struck, Their root has dried up, they do not yield fruit, Indeed, though they bring forth, I have put to death the desired of their womb.
17 My God rejects them, Because they have not listened to Him, And they are wanderers among nations!”
