Hosea 8

Israel Will Reap the Whirlwind

¹ Put the ram’s horn to your lips!

An eagle looms over the house of the LORD,

because the people have transgressed My covenant

and rebelled against My law.

² Israel cries out to Me,

“O our God, we know You!”

³ But Israel has rejected good;

an enemy will pursue him.

⁴ They set up kings, but not by Me.

They make princes, but without My approval.

With their silver and gold they make themselves idols,

to their own destruction.

⁵ He has rejected your calf,^a O Samaria.

My anger burns against them.

How long will they be

incapable of innocence?

⁶ For this thing is from Israel—

a craftsman made it, and it is not God.

It will be broken to pieces,

that calf of Samaria.

⁷ For they sow the wind,

and they shall reap the whirlwind.

There is no standing grain;

what sprouts fails to yield flour.

Even if it should produce,

the foreigners would swallow it up.

⁸ Israel is swallowed up!

Now they are among the nations

like a worthless vessel.

⁹ For they have gone up to Assyria

like a wild donkey on its own.

Ephraim^b has hired lovers.

¹⁰ Though they hire allies among the nations,

I will now round them up,

and they will begin to diminish

under the oppression of the king of princes.

¹¹ Though Ephraim multiplied the altars for sin,

they became his altars for sinning.

¹² Though I wrote for them the great things of My law,

they regarded them as something strange.

¹³ Though they offer sacrifices as gifts to Me,

and though they eat the meat,

the LORD does not accept them.

Now He will remember their iniquity and punish their sins:

They will return to Egypt.

¹⁴ Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces;

Judah has multiplied its fortified cities.

But I will send fire upon their cities,

and it will consume their citadels.