Hosea 9

Ephraim Punished

1Do 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.

2Threshing floor and wine press will not feed them,

And the new wine will fail them.

3They will not remain in the Lord's land,

But Ephraim will return to Egypt,

And in Assyria they will eat unclean food.

4They 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.

5What will you do on the day of the appointed festival

And on the day of the feast of the Lord?

6For 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.

7The 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.

8Ephraim 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.

9They have gone deep in depravity

As in the days of Gibeah;

He will remember their iniquity,

He will punish their sins.

10I 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.

11As for Ephraim, their glory will fly away like a bird—

No birth, no pregnancy and no conception!

12Though 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!

13Ephraim, as I have seen,

Is planted in a pleasant meadow like Tyre;

But Ephraim will bring out his children for slaughter.

14Give them, O Lord—what will You give?

Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.

15All 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.

16Ephraim 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.

17My God will cast them away

Because they have not listened to Him;

And they will be wanderers among the nations.