Hosea 9

1Do not rejoice, Israel; do not exult like the peoples, for you have prostituted yourself, abandoning your God. You have loved a prostitute’s pay on every threshing floor of grain.

2Threshing floor and winepress will not feed them, and the new wine will fail her.

3They will not remain in the land of Yahweh; Ephraim will return to Egypt, and in Assyria they will eat unclean food.

4They will not pour out wine offerings to Yahweh, and their sacrifices will not please him. Such sacrifices will be to them like mourners’ bread; all who eat it will be defiled. For their bread will be for their own hunger; it will not come into the house of Yahweh.

5What will you do on the day of the appointed festival, on the day of Yahweh’s feast?

6For look, they have fled from destruction, but Egypt will gather them, and Memphis will bury them. Nettles will take possession of their treasures of silver, and thorns will grow in their tents.

7The days of punishment have come; the days of repayment have come; Israel will know it. The prophet is a fool; the man of the spirit is insane—because your iniquity is great and your hostility is great.

8The prophet is the watchman of Ephraim with my God, yet a fowler’s snare is on all his paths, and hostility is in the house of his God.

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

10Like grapes in the wilderness I found Israel; like the first fruit on the fig tree in its first season I saw your ancestors. But they came to Baal-peor and consecrated themselves to that shameful thing, and they became as detestable as the thing they loved.

11Ephraim’s glory will fly away like a bird—no birth, no pregnancy, no conception.

12Even if they bring up children, I will bereave them until no one is left. Yes, woe to them when I turn away from them!

13Ephraim, as I have seen, was like Tyre, planted in a meadow; but Ephraim will bring out his children to the slayer.

14Give them, Yahweh—what will you give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.

15All their wickedness is in Gilgal; there I came to hate them. Because of the evil of their deeds I will drive them out of my house. I will love them no more; all their princes are rebels.

16Ephraim is struck down; their root is dried up; they will bear no fruit. Even if they give birth, I will put to death the precious offspring of their wombs.

17My God will reject them because they have not listened to him, and they will be wanderers among the nations.