Israel’s False Hopes
One like an eagle comes
against the house of the Lord,
because they transgress My covenant
and rebel against My law.
2 Israel cries out to Me,
“My God, we know You!”
3 Israel has rejected what is good;
an enemy will pursue him.
but not through Me.
They have appointed leaders,
but without My approval.
They make their silver and gold
into idols for themselves
for their own destruction.[a]
5 Your calf-idol[b] is rejected, Samaria.
My anger burns against them.
How long will they be incapable of innocence?
6 For this thing is from Israel—
a craftsman made it, and it is not God.
The calf of Samaria will be smashed to bits!
and reap the whirlwind.
There is no standing grain;
what sprouts fails to yield flour.
Even if they did,
foreigners would swallow it up.
8 Israel is swallowed up!
Now they are among the nations
like discarded pottery.
9 For they have gone up to Assyria
like a wild donkey going off on its own.
Ephraim has paid for love.
10 Even though they hire lovers among the nations,
I will now round them up,
and they will begin to decrease in number
under the burden of the king and leaders.
they became his altars for sinning.
12 Though I were to write out for him
ten thousand points of My instruction,
they would be[c] regarded as something strange.
13 Though they offer sacrificial gifts[d]
and eat the flesh,
the Lord does not accept them.
Now He will remember their guilt
and punish their sins;
they will return to Egypt.
14 Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces;
Judah has also multiplied fortified cities.
I will send fire on their cities,
and it will consume their citadels.
Footnotes
- Hosea 8:4 Lit themselves that it might be cut off
- Hosea 8:5 Lit calf
- Hosea 8:12 Or Though I wrote out . . . instruction, they are
- Hosea 8:13 Hb obscure