Hosea 8

¹Hosea 8:1. Put the ram’s horn to your lips! An eagle looms over the house of the LORD, because the people have transgressed My covenant and rebelled against My law.²Hosea 8:2. Israel cries out to Me, “O our God, we know You!”³Hosea 8:3. But Israel has rejected good; an enemy will pursue him.⁴Hosea 8:4. They set up kings, but not by Me. They make princes, but without My approval. With their silver and gold they make themselves idols, to their own destruction.⁵Hosea 8:5. He has rejected your calf, O Samaria. My anger burns against them. How long will they be incapable of innocence?⁶Hosea 8:6. For this thing is from Israel—a craftsman made it, and it is not God. It will be broken to pieces, that calf of Samaria.⁷Hosea 8:7. For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind. There is no standing grain; what sprouts fails to yield flour. Even if it should produce, the foreigners would swallow it up.⁸Hosea 8:8. Israel is swallowed up! Now they are among the nations like a worthless vessel.⁹Hosea 8:9. For they have gone up to Assyria like a wild donkey on its own. Ephraim has hired lovers.¹⁰Hosea 8:10. Though they hire allies among the nations, I will now round them up, and they will begin to diminish under the oppression of the king of princes.¹¹Hosea 8:11. Though Ephraim multiplied the altars for sin, they became his altars for sinning.¹²Hosea 8:12. Though I wrote for them the great things of My law, they regarded them as something strange.¹³Hosea 8:13. Though they offer sacrifices as gifts to Me, and though they eat the meat, the LORD does not accept them. Now He will remember their iniquity and punish their sins: They will return to Egypt.¹⁴Hosea 8:14. Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces; Judah has multiplied its fortified cities. But I will send fire upon their cities, and it will consume their citadels.