Hosea 7
Literal Standard Version
Chapter overview
Israel's wrongdoing is fully visible even as leaders reward deceit and political conspiracies consume successive rulers. The nation is compared to an overheated oven, an unturned cake, and a senseless dove seeking Egypt and Assyria, yet it does not truly return to God.
CorruptionPolitical IntrigueForeign AlliancesUnrepentance
1“When I give healing to Israel, || Then the iniquity of Ephraim is revealed, || And the wickedness of Samaria, || For they have worked falsehood, || And a thief comes in, || A troop has stripped off in the street,
2And they do not say to their heart, || [That] I have remembered all their evil, || Now their doings have surrounded them, || They have been before My face.
3With their wickedness they make a king glad, || And with their lies—princes.
4All of them [are] adulterers, || Like a burning oven of a baker, || He ceases from stirring up after kneading the dough, until its leavening.
5A day of our king! Princes have defiled themselves [with] the poison of wine, || He has drawn out his hand with scorners.
6For they have drawn near, || Their heart [is] as an oven || In their lying in wait—their baker sleeps all night, || Morning! He is burning as a flaming fire.
7All of them are warm as an oven, || And they have devoured their judges, || All their kings have fallen, || There is none calling to Me among them.
8Ephraim! He mixes himself among peoples, || Ephraim has been an unturned cake.
9Strangers have devoured his power, || And he has not known, || Also old age has sprinkled [itself] on him, || And he has not known.
10And the excellence of Israel has been humbled to his face, || And they have not turned back to their God YHWH, || Nor have they sought Him for all this.
11And Ephraim is as a simple dove without heart, || Egypt they called on—[to] Asshur they have gone.
12When they go I spread over them My net, || As the bird of the heavens I bring them down, || I discipline them as their congregation has heard.
13Woe to them, for they wandered from Me, || Destruction to them, for they transgressed against Me, || And I ransom them, and they have spoken lies against Me,
14And have not cried to Me with their heart, but howl on their beds; They assemble themselves for grain and new wine, || They turn aside against Me.
15And I instructed—I strengthened their arms, || And concerning Me they think evil!
16They turn back—not to the Most High, || They have been as a deceitful bow, || Their princes fall by sword, || From the insolence of their tongue, || This [is] their derision in the land of Egypt!”
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