Hosea 5

Hosea 5

Impending Judgment on Israel and Judah

¹Hear this, O priests![#Hos 4.1; 6.9]

Give heed, O house of Israel!

Listen, O house of the king!

For the judgment pertains to you,

for you have been a snare at Mizpah

and a net spread upon Tabor

²and a pit dug deep in Shittim,[#5.2 Cn: Meaning of Heb uncertain]

but I will punish all of them.

³I know Ephraim,[#Hos 6.10; Am 3.2]

and Israel is not hidden from me,

for now, O Ephraim, you have prostituted yourself;

Israel is defiled.

⁴Their deeds do not permit them[#Hos 4.11, 12]

to return to their God.

For the spirit of prostitution is within them,

and they do not know the Lord .

⁵Israel’s pride testifies against him;[#Ezek 23.31–35; Hos 4.5; 7.10]

Ephraim stumbles in his guilt;

Judah also stumbles with them.

⁶With their flocks and herds they shall go[#Isa 1.15; Ezek 8.6; Mic 6.6, 7]

to seek the Lord ,

but they will not find him;

he has withdrawn from them.

⁷They have dealt faithlessly with the Lord ,[#Isa 48.8; Hos 2.4, 11, 12; 6.7]

for they have borne illegitimate children.

Now the new moon shall devour them along with their fields.

⁸Blow the horn in Gibeah,[#Isa 10.29, 30; Hos 4.15; 9.9; 10.9]

the trumpet in Ramah.

Sound the alarm at Beth-aven;

look behind you, Benjamin!

⁹Ephraim shall become a desolation[#Isa 37.3; 46.10; Zech 1.6]

in the day of punishment;

among the tribes of Israel

I declare what is sure.

¹⁰The princes of Judah have become[#Deut 19.14; Ps 93.3, 4; Ezek 7.8]

like those who remove the landmark;

on them I will pour out

my wrath like water.

¹¹Ephraim is oppressed, crushed in judgment,

because he was determined to go after vanity.

¹²Therefore I am like maggots to Ephraim[#Ps 39.11; Prov 12.4]

and like rottenness to the house of Judah.

¹³When Ephraim saw his sickness[#Jer 30.12; Hos 7.11; 8.9; 10.6; 14.3]

and Judah his wound,

then Ephraim went to Assyria

and sent to the great king.

But he is not able to cure you

or heal your wound.

¹⁴For I will be like a lion to Ephraim[#Ps 50.22; Hos 13.7, 8; Mic 5.8]

and like a young lion to the house of Judah.

I myself will tear and go away;

I will carry off, and no one shall rescue.

¹⁵I will return again to my place[#Isa 64.7–9; Jer 2.27; Hos 3.5]

until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face.

In their distress they will beg my favor: