Hosea 8

The Apostasy of Israel

¹“Set the trumpet to your mouth!

He shall come like an eagle against the house of the Lord ,

Because they have transgressed My covenant

And rebelled against My law.

²Israel will cry to Me,[#Ps. 78:34; Hos. 5:15; 7:14]

‘My God, we know You!’

³Israel has rejected the good;

The enemy will pursue him.

⁴“They set up kings, but not by Me;[#1 Kin. 12:20; 2 Kin. 15:23, 25; Hos. 13:10, 11]

They made princes, but I did not acknowledge them.

From their silver and gold

They made idols for themselves—

That they might be cut off.

⁵Your calf is rejected, O Samaria!

My anger is aroused against them—

How long until they attain to innocence?

⁶For from Israel is even this:

A workman made it, and it is not God;

But the calf of Samaria shall be broken to pieces.

⁷“They sow the wind,[#Prov. 22:8]

And reap the whirlwind.

The stalk has no bud;

It shall never produce meal.

If it should produce,

Aliens would swallow it up.

⁸Israel is swallowed up;[#2 Kin. 17:6; Jer. 51:34]

Now they are among the Gentiles

Like a vessel in which is no pleasure.

⁹For they have gone up to Assyria,

Like a wild donkey alone by itself;

Ephraim has hired lovers.

¹⁰Yes, though they have hired among the nations,

Now I will gather them;

And they shall sorrow a little,

Because of the burden of the king of princes.

¹¹“Because Ephraim has made many altars for sin,

They have become for him altars for sinning.

¹²I have written for him the great things of My law,[#(Deut. 4:6–8); Ps. 119:18; 147:19, 20]

But they were considered a strange thing.

¹³For the sacrifices of My offerings they sacrifice flesh and eat it,[#Zech. 7:6]

But the Lord does not accept them.

Now He will remember their iniquity and punish their sins.

They shall return to Egypt.

¹⁴“For Israel has forgotten his Maker,[#Deut. 32:18; (Hos. 2:13; 4:6; 13:6); #Is. 29:23]

And has built temples;

Judah also has multiplied fortified cities;

But I will send fire upon his cities,

And it shall devour his palaces.”