Punishment for Israel’s Sin
9 Do not rejoice, O Israel!
Do not exult[a] as other nations do,
for you have prostituted yourself, departing from your God.
You have loved a prostitute’s pay
on all threshing floors.(A)
2 Threshing floor and wine vat shall not feed them,
and the new wine shall fail them.(B)
3 They shall not remain in the land of the Lord,
but Ephraim shall return to Egypt,
and in Assyria they shall eat unclean food.(C)
4 They shall not pour drink offerings of wine to the Lord,
and their sacrifices shall not please him.
Such sacrifices shall be like mourners’ bread;
all who eat of it shall be defiled,
for their bread shall be for their hunger only;
it shall not come to the house of the Lord.(D)
5 What will you do on the day of appointed festival
and on the day of the festival of the Lord?(E)
6 For even if they escape destruction,
Egypt shall gather them;
Memphis shall bury them.
Nettles shall possess their precious things of silver;[b]
thorns shall be in their tents.(F)
7 The days of punishment have come;
the days of recompense have come.
Israel will cry out,[c]
“The prophet is a fool;
the man of the spirit is mad!”
Because of your great iniquity,
your hostility is great.(G)
8 The prophet is a sentinel for my God over Ephraim,
yet a hunter’s snare is on all his ways
and hostility in the house of his God.(H)
9 They have deeply corrupted themselves
as in the days of Gibeah;
he will remember their iniquity;
he will punish their sins.(I)
10 Like 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 a thing of shame
and became detestable like the thing they loved.(J)
11 Ephraim’s glory shall fly away like a bird—
no birth, no pregnancy, no conception!(K)
12 Even if they bring up children,
I will bereave them until no one is left.
Woe to them indeed
when I depart from them!(L)
13 Once I saw Ephraim as a young palm planted in a lovely meadow,[d]
but now Ephraim must lead out his children for slaughter.(M)
14 Give them, O Lord—
what will you give?
Give them a miscarrying womb
and dry breasts.
15 Every evil of theirs began at Gilgal;
there I came to hate them.
Because of the wickedness of their deeds
I will drive them out of my house.
I will love them no more;
all their officials are rebels.(N)
16 Ephraim is stricken,
their root is dried up,
they shall bear no fruit.
Even though they give birth,
I will kill the cherished offspring of their womb.(O)
17 Because they have not listened to him,
my God will reject them;
they shall become wanderers among the nations.(P)
Footnotes
Cross references
- 9.1 : Isa 22.12, 13; Jer 44.17; Hos 4.12; 10.5
- 9.2 : Hos 2.9
- 9.3 : Jer 2.7; Ezek 4.13; Hos 7.11; 8.13
- 9.4 : Jer 6.20; Hos 5.6; 8.13; Hag 2.14
- 9.5 : Isa 10.3; Jer 5.31; Joel 1.13
- 9.6 : Isa 5.6; Jer 2.16; Ezek 30.13, 16; Hos 8.13; 10.8
- 9.7 : Isa 34.8; Jer 10.15; 16.18; Ezek 14.9, 10; Mic 7.4
- 9.8 : Hos 5.1
- 9.9 : Judg 19.12; Isa 31.6; Hos 5.8; 7.2; 8.13; 10.9
- 9.10 : Num 25.3; Jer 11.13; 24.2; Hos 4.14; Mic 7.1
- 9.11 : v 14; Hos 4.7; 10.5
- 9.12 : v 16; Hos 7.13
- 9.13 : Ezek 27.3, 4
- 9.15 : Isa 1.23; Hos 4.9; 7.2; 12.2
- 9.16 : v 12; Hos 5.11; 8.7
- 9.17 : Deut 28.65; Hos 4.10