<< Hosea 9 >>
New American Standard Bible ©
 

Ephraim Punished

1 Do not rejoice, O Israel, with exultation like the nations!  For you have played the harlot, forsaking your God.  You have loved harlots’ earnings on every threshing floor.
2 Threshing floor and wine press will not feed them,  And the new wine will fail them.
3 They will not remain in the LORD’S land,  But Ephraim will return to Egypt,  And in Assyria they will eat unclean food.
4 They will not pour out drink offerings of wine to the LORD,  Their sacrifices will not please Him.  Their bread will be like mourners’ bread;  All who eat of it will be defiled,  For their bread will be for themselves alone;  It will not enter the house of the LORD.
5 What will you do on the day of the appointed festival  And on the day of the feast of the LORD?
6 For behold, they will go because of destruction;  Egypt will gather them up, Memphis will bury them.  Weeds will take over their treasures of silver;  Thorns will be in their tents.
7 The days of punishment have come,  The days of retribution have come;  Let Israel know this!  The prophet is a fool,  The inspired man is demented,  Because of the grossness of your iniquity,  And because your hostility is so great.
8 Ephraim was a watchman with my God, a prophet;  Yet the snare of a bird catcher is in all his ways,  And there is only hostility in the house of his God.
9 They have gone deep in depravity  As in the days of Gibeah;  He will remember their iniquity,  He will punish their sins.
10 I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness;  I saw your forefathers as the earliest fruit on the fig tree in its first season.  But they came to Baal-peor and devoted themselves to shame,  And they became as detestable as that which they loved.
11 As for Ephraim, their glory will fly away like a bird—  No birth, no pregnancy and no conception!
12 Though they bring up their children,  Yet I will bereave them until not a man is left.  Yes, woe to them indeed when I depart from them!
13 Ephraim, as I have seen,  Is planted in a pleasant meadow like Tyre;  But Ephraim will bring out his children for slaughter.
14 Give them, O LORD—what will You give?  Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.
15 All their evil is at Gilgal;  Indeed, I came to hate them there!  Because of the wickedness of their deeds  I will drive them out of My house!  I will love them no more;  All their princes are rebels.
16 Ephraim is stricken, their root is dried up,  They will bear no fruit.  Even though they bear children,  I will slay the precious ones of their womb.
17 My God will cast them away  Because they have not listened to Him;  And they will be wanderers among the nations.
New American Standard Bible Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, Calif. All rights reserved. For Permission to Quote Information visit http://www.lockman.org.
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