The Living Bible (281 page)

Hosea
8

“Sound the alarm! They are coming! Like a vulture, the enemy descends upon the people of God because they have broken my treaty and revolted against my laws.

    
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 “Now Israel pleads with me and says, ‘Help us, for you are our God!’
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 But it is too late! Israel has thrown away her chance with contempt, and now her enemies will chase her.
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 She has appointed kings and princes, but not with my consent. They have cut themselves off from my help by worshiping the idols that they made from their silver and gold.

    
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 “O Samaria, I reject this calf—this idol you have made. My fury burns against you. How long will it be before one honest man is found among you?
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 When will you admit this calf you worship was made by human hands! It is not God! Therefore, it must be smashed to bits.

    
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 “They have sown the wind, and they will reap the whirlwind. Their cornstalks stand there barren, withered, sickly, with no grain; if it has any, foreigners will eat it.

    
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 “Israel is destroyed; she lies among the nations as a broken pot.
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 She is a lonely, wandering wild ass. The only friends she has are those she hires; Assyria is one of them.

    
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 “But though she hires ‘friends’ from many lands, I will send her off to exile. Then for a while at least she will be free of the burden of her wonderful king!
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 Ephraim has built many altars, but they are not to worship me! They are altars of sin!
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 Even if I gave her ten thousand laws, she’d say they weren’t for her—that they applied to someone far away.
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 Her people love the ritual of their sacrifice, but to me it is meaningless! I will call for an accounting of their sins and punish them; they shall return to Egypt.

    
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 “Israel has built great palaces; Judah has constructed great defenses for her cities, but they have forgotten their Maker. Therefore, I will send down fire upon those palaces and burn those fortresses.”

Hosea
9

O Israel, rejoice no more as others do, for you have deserted your God and sacrificed to other gods on every threshing floor.

    
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 Therefore your harvests will be small; your grapes will blight upon the vine.

    
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 You may no longer stay here in this land of God; you will be carried off to Egypt and Assyria and live there on scraps of food.
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 There, far from home, you are not allowed to pour out wine for sacrifice to God. For no sacrifice that is offered there can please him; it is polluted, just as food of mourners is; all who eat such sacrifices are defiled. They may eat this food to feed themselves, but may not offer it to God.
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 What then will you do on holy days, on days of feasting to the Lord,
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 when you are carried off to Assyria as slaves? Who will inherit your possessions left behind? Egypt will! She will gather your dead; Memphis will bury them. And thorns and thistles will grow up among the ruins.

    
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 The time of Israel’s punishment has come; the day of recompense is almost here, and soon Israel will know it all too well. “The prophets are crazy”; “The inspired men are mad.” Yes, so they mock, for the nation is weighted with sin and shows only hatred for those who love God.

    
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 “I appointed the prophets to guard my people, but the people have blocked them at every turn and publicly declared their hatred, even in the Temple of the Lord.
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 The things my people do are as depraved as what they did in Gibeah
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long ago. The Lord does not forget. He will surely punish them.

    
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 “O Israel, how well I remember those first delightful days when I led you through the wilderness! How refreshing was your love! How satisfying, like the early figs of summer in their first season! But then you deserted me for Baal-peor,
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to give yourselves to other gods, and soon you were as foul as they.
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 The glory of Israel flies away like a bird, for your children will die at birth, or perish in the womb, or never even be conceived.
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 And if your children grow, I will take them from you; all are doomed. Yes, it will be a sad day when I turn away and leave you alone.”

    
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 In my vision I have seen the sons of Israel doomed. The fathers are forced to lead their sons to slaughter.
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 O Lord, what shall I ask for your people? I will ask for wombs that don’t give birth, for breasts that cannot nourish.

    
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 “All their wickedness began at Gilgal;
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there I began to hate them. I will drive them from my land because of their idolatry. I will love them no more, for all their leaders are rebels.
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 Ephraim is doomed. The roots of Israel are dried up; she shall bear no more fruit. And if she gives birth, I will slay even her beloved child.”

    
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 My God will destroy the people of Israel because they will not listen or obey. They will be wandering Jews, homeless among the nations.

Hosea
10

“How prosperous Israel is—a luxuriant vine all filled with fruit! But the more wealth I give her, the more she pours it on the altars of her heathen gods; the richer the harvests I give her, the more beautiful the statues and idols she erects.
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 The hearts of her people are false toward God. They are guilty and must be punished. God will break down their heathen altars and smash their idols.”

    
³
 Then they will say, “We deserted the Lord and he took away our king. But what’s the difference? We don’t need one anyway!”

    
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 They make promises they don’t intend to keep. Therefore punishment will spring up among them like poisonous weeds in the furrows of the field.
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 The people of Samaria tremble lest their calf idol at Beth-aven should be hurt; the priests and people, too, mourn over the departed honor of their shattered gods.
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 This idol—this calf-god thing—will be carted with them when they go as slaves to Assyria, a present to the great king there. Ephraim will be laughed at for trusting in this idol; Israel will be put to shame.
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 As for Samaria, her king shall disappear like a chip of wood upon an ocean wave.
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 And the idol altars of Aven at Bethel where Israel sinned will crumble. Thorns and thistles will grow up to surround them. And the people will cry to the mountains and hills to fall upon them and crush them.

    
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 “O Israel, ever since that awful night in Gibeah,
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there has been only sin, sin, sin! You have made no progress whatever. Was it not right that the men of Gibeah were wiped out?
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 I will come against you for your disobedience; I will gather the armies of the nations against you to punish you for your heaped-up sins.

    
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 “Ephraim is accustomed to treading out the grain—an easy job she loves. I have never put her under a heavy yoke before; I have spared her tender neck. But now I will harness her to the plow and harrow. Her days of ease are gone.

    
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 “Plant the good seeds of righteousness, and you will reap a crop of my love; plow the hard ground of your hearts, for now is the time to seek the Lord, that he may come and shower salvation upon you.

    
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 “But you have cultivated wickedness and raised a thriving crop of sins. You have earned the full reward of trusting in a lie—believing that military might and great armies can make a nation safe!

    
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 “Therefore, the terrors of war shall rise among your people, and all your forts will fall, just as at Beth-arbel, which Shalman
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destroyed; even mothers and children were dashed to death there.
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 That will be your fate, too, you people of Israel, because of your great wickedness. In one morning the king of Israel shall be destroyed.

Hosea
11

“When Israel was a child, I loved him as a son and brought him out of Egypt.
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 But the more I called to him, the more he rebelled, sacrificing to Baal and burning incense to idols.
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 I trained him from infancy, I taught him to walk, I held him in my arms. But he doesn’t know or even care that it was I who raised him.

    
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 “As a man would lead his favorite ox,
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so I led Israel with my ropes of love. I loosened his muzzle so he could eat. I myself have stooped and fed him.
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 But my people shall return to Egypt and Assyria because they won’t return to me.

    
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 “War will swirl through their cities; their enemies will crash through their gates and trap them in their own fortresses.
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 For my people are determined to desert me. And so I have sentenced them to slavery, and no one shall set them free.

    
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 “Oh, how can I give you up, my Ephraim? How can I let you go? How can I forsake you like Admah and Zeboiim?
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My heart cries out within me; how I long to help you!
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 No, I will not punish you as much as my fierce anger tells me to. This is the last time I will destroy Ephraim. For I am God and not man; I am the Holy One living among you, and I did not come to destroy.

    
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 “For the people shall walk after the Lord. I shall roar as a lion at their enemies and my people shall return trembling from the west.
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 Like a flock of birds, they will come from Egypt—like doves flying from Assyria. And I will bring them home again; it is a promise from the Lord.”

    
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 Israel surrounds me with lies and deceit, but Judah still trusts in God and is faithful to the Holy One.