Hosea 5
New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition

Impending Judgment on Israel and Judah

1Hear this, O priests!
    Give heed, O house of Israel!
Listen, O house of the king!
    For the judgment pertains to you;
for you have been a snare at Mizpah,
    and a net spread upon Tabor,
2and a pit dug deep in Shittim;[a]
    but I will punish all of them.

3I know Ephraim,
    and Israel is not hidden from me;
for now, O Ephraim, you have played the whore;
    Israel is defiled.
4Their deeds do not permit them
    to return to their God.
For the spirit of whoredom is within them,
    and they do not know the Lord.

5Israel’s pride testifies against him;
    Ephraim[b] stumbles in his guilt;
    Judah also stumbles with them.
6With their flocks and herds they shall go
    to seek the Lord,
but they will not find him;
    he has withdrawn from them.
7They have dealt faithlessly with the Lord;
    for they have borne illegitimate children.
    Now the new moon shall devour them along with their fields.

8Blow the horn in Gibeah,
    the trumpet in Ramah.
Sound the alarm at Beth-aven;
    look behind you, Benjamin!
9Ephraim shall become a desolation
    in the day of punishment;
among the tribes of Israel
    I declare what is sure.
10The princes of Judah have become
    like those who remove the landmark;
on them I will pour out
    my wrath like water.
11Ephraim is oppressed, crushed in judgment,
    because he was determined to go after vanity.[c]
12Therefore I am like maggots to Ephraim,
    and like rottenness to the house of Judah.
13When Ephraim saw his sickness,
    and Judah his wound,
then Ephraim went to Assyria,
    and sent to the great king.[d]
But he is not able to cure you
    or heal your wound.
14For I will be like a lion to Ephraim,
    and like a young lion to the house of Judah.
I myself will tear and go away;
    I will carry off, and no one shall rescue.
15I will return again to my place
    until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face.
    In their distress they will beg my favor:

Footnotes

  1. Hosea 5:2 Cn: Meaning of Heb uncertain
  2. Hosea 5:5 Heb Israel and Ephraim
  3. Hosea 5:11 Gk: Meaning of Heb uncertain
  4. Hosea 5:13 Cn: Heb to a king who will contend
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.





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