Oséias 9

¹ O Israel, do not rejoice for joy, like the peoples. For you have committed adultery against your God. You have loved for hire on every grain threshing floor.

² The threshing floor and the winepress shall not feed them, and the new wine shall fail in her.

³ They shall not live in the land of Jehovah. But Ephraim shall return to Egypt, and they shall eat unclean things in Assyria.

⁴ They shall not offer wine to Jehovah; they shall not be pleasing to Him. Their sacrifices shall be like the bread of sorrows to them; all who eat it shall be defiled, for their bread for their life shall not come into the house of Jehovah.

⁵ What will you do in the appointed day, and in the day of the feast of Jehovah?

⁶ For, lo, they are gone because of destruction. Egypt shall gather them up; Memphis shall bury them. Nettles shall possess their valuables of silver; thorns shall be in their tents.

⁷ The days of visitation have come; the days of retribution have come. Israel shall know. The prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is insane, because of the greatness of your iniquity and your great hatred.

⁸ The watchman of Ephraim is with my God, but the prophet is a snare of a fowler in all his ways; hatred is in the house of his God.

⁹ They have deeply corrupted, as in the days of Gibeah. He will remember their iniquity; He will punish their sins.

¹⁰ I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness. I saw your fathers as the firstfruits on the fig tree in its first season. But they went to Baal-peor and set themselves apart to that shameful thing. And they became an abomination like that which they loved.

¹¹ The glory of Ephraim shall fly away like a bird; from birth, and from the womb, and from conception.

¹² Though they raise their sons, yet I will make them childless, until not a man is left. Yea, woe also to them when I turn away from them!

¹³ As I watched Tyre, Ephraim was planted in a pleasant place. But Ephraim shall lead out his sons to the slayer.

¹⁴ O Jehovah, give them. What will you give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.

¹⁵ All their wickedness is in Gilgal, for there I hated them. I will drive them out of My house because of the wickedness of their doings, I will love them no more; all their rulers are rebellious.

¹⁶ Ephraim is stricken; their root is dried up; they shall bear no fruit. Yea, though they bear, yet I will kill the beloved ones of their womb.

¹⁷ My God shall cast them away because they did not give heed to Him; and they shall be wanderers among the nations.