Hosea 9
1 Do not celebrate, Israel, with joy like the nations, for you have been unfaithful to your God. You have loved a prostitute’s wages on every threshing floor.
2 The threshing floor and the winepress will not feed them, and the new wine will fail her.
3 They will not remain in the land of the LORD. Ephraim will return to Egypt, and in Assyria they will eat unclean food.
4 They will not pour out wine as an offering to the LORD, and their sacrifices will not please him. They will be like mourning bread to them; all who eat it will become unclean, for their food will be only for their own appetite. It will not enter the house of the LORD.
5 What will you do on the appointed day, on the day of the LORD’s festival?
6 Look, they have fled from destruction, but Egypt will gather them and Memphis will bury them. Nettles will take over their precious silver, and thorns will grow in their tents.
7 The days of punishment have come; the days of retribution have come. Israel will know it. The prophet is a fool; the man of the spirit is mad, because your guilt is so great and your hostility so fierce.
8 Ephraim is a watchman with my God; the prophet is a hunter’s snare on all his paths, and there is hostility in the house of his God.
9 They have sunk deep into corruption, as in the days of Gibeah. He will remember their guilt and punish their sins.
10 I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness; I saw your ancestors like the first fruit on a fig tree at its beginning. But they went to Baal-Peor, devoted themselves to shame, and became detestable like what they loved.
11 As for Ephraim, their glory will fly away like a bird: no birth, no pregnancy, no conception.
12 Even if they raise their children, I will leave them childless, without anyone. Woe to them when I turn away from them!
13 Ephraim, as I saw Tyre, is planted in a meadow; but Ephraim will bring out his children for the killer.
14 Give them, LORD—what will you give? Give them a womb that miscarries and dry breasts.
15 All their wickedness is in Gilgal; there I began to hate them. Because of their evil deeds, I will drive them from my house. I will love them no more, because all their leaders are rebels.
16 Ephraim is struck down; their root has withered, and they will bear no fruit. Even if they have children, I will put to death the beloved ones in their womb.
17 My God will reject them, because they have not listened to him; they will wander among the nations.
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