Hosea 7 / 14
- 1
When I would heal Israel,
the iniquity of Ephraim is revealed,
and the evil deeds of Samaria;
for they deal falsely;
the thief breaks in,
and the bandits raid outside.
- 2
But they do not consider
that I remember all their evil.
Now their deeds surround them;
they are before my face.
- 3
By their evil they make the king glad,
and the princes by their treachery.
- 4
They are all adulterers;
they are like a heated oven
whose baker ceases to stir the fire,
from the kneading of the dough
until it is leavened.
- 5
On the day of our king, the princes
became sick with the heat of wine;
he stretched out his hand with mockers.
- 6
For with hearts like an oven they approach their intrigue;
all night their anger smolders;
in the morning it blazes like a flaming fire.
- 7
All of them are hot as an oven,
and they devour their rulers.
All their kings have fallen,
and none of them calls upon me.
- 8
Ephraim mixes himself with the peoples;
Ephraim is a cake not turned.
- 9
Strangers devour his strength,
and he knows it not;
gray hairs are sprinkled upon him,
and he knows it not.
- 10
The pride of Israel testifies to his face;
yet they do not return to the Lord their God,
nor seek him, for all this.
- 11
Ephraim is like a dove,
silly and without sense,
calling to Egypt, going to Assyria.
- 12
As they go, I will spread over them my net;
I will bring them down like birds of the heavens;
I will discipline them according to the report made to their congregation.
- 13
Woe to them, for they have strayed from me!
Destruction to them, for they have rebelled against me!
I would redeem them,
but they speak lies against me.
- 14
They do not cry to me from the heart,
but they wail upon their beds;
for grain and wine they gash themselves;
they rebel against me.
- 15
Although I trained and strengthened their arms,
yet they devise evil against me.
- 16
They return, but not upward;
they are like a treacherous bow;
their princes shall fall by the sword
because of the insolence of their tongue.
This shall be their derision in the land of Egypt.