hosea

God’s Case against Jacob’s Heirs

12 
Ephraim chases[a] the wind

and pursues the east wind.

He continually multiplies lies and violence.

He makes a covenant with Assyria,

and olive oil is carried to Egypt.

The Lord also has a dispute with Judah.

He is about to punish Jacob according to his ways;

He will repay him based on his actions.

In the womb he grasped his brother’s heel,

and as an adult he wrestled with God.

Jacob struggled with the Angel and prevailed;

he wept and sought His favor.

He found him[b] at Bethel,

and there He spoke with him.[c]

Yahweh is the God of Hosts;

Yahweh is His name.

But you must return to your God.

Maintain love and justice,

and always put your hope in God.

A merchant loves to extort

with dishonest scales in his hands.

But Ephraim says:

“How rich I have become;

I made it all myself.

In all my earnings,

no one can find any crime in me

that I can be punished for!”[d]

Judgment on Apostate Israel

I have been Yahweh your God

ever since[e] the land of Egypt.

I will make you live in tents again,

as in the festival days.

10 I spoke through the prophets

and granted many visions;

I gave parables through the prophets.

11 Since Gilead is full of evil,

they will certainly come to nothing.

They sacrifice bulls in Gilgal;

even their altars will be like heaps of rocks

on the furrows of a field.

Further Indictment of Jacob’s Heirs

12 Jacob fled to the land of Aram.

Israel worked to earn a wife;

he tended flocks for a wife.

13 The Lord brought Israel from Egypt by a prophet,

and Israel was tended by a prophet.

14 Ephraim has provoked bitter anger,

so his Lord will leave his bloodguilt on him

and repay him for his contempt.

Footnotes

  1. Hosea 12:1 Or feeds on, or tends
  2. Hosea 12:4 Or Him
  3. Hosea 12:4 LXX, Syr; MT reads us
  4. Hosea 12:8 Lit crime which is sin
  5. Hosea 12:9 LXX reads God who brought you out of