International Standard Version
Hosea 9
1 “Don’t celebrate, Israel, like other nations would rejoice, because you left your God by committing fornication, loving the profit you gained on all of the threshing floors.
2 Neither threshing floor nor winepress will sustain them, and the new wine will disappoint her.
3 They will not live in the LORD’s land— Ephraim will return to Egypt, and they will eat unclean food in Assyria.
4 They won’t present wine offerings to the LORD, nor will they please him. Their sacrifices will seem like food for mourners— everyone who eats them will become unclean; none of them will enter the Temple of the LORD.
5 “What will you do on the designated holiday, when the LORD’s festival comes?
6 Look! They have gone away because of the destruction— Egypt will gather them up, and Memphis a will bury them. Weeds will overgrow their inheritance, b and thorns will grow c in their tents.
7 The time for your judgment has now come; payday is here— and Israel knows it. The prophet is a fool, and the spiritual man is insane. Because of your great sin, the hatred against you d is great.
8 While Ephraim stands watch with my God, the prophet has snares set that will trap his ways, and hostility lodges in the Temple of his God.
9 They have corrupted themselves deeply, as did Gibeah e in its day. Therefore God f will remember their lawlessness, and he will pay them back for their sins.
10 “I found Israel, as one finds g grapes in the wilderness; Your ancestors seemed to me like the fruit gleaned from a fig tree’s first harvest. When they went to Baal-peor, h they devoted themselves to that filth, and they became loathsome, like what they loved.
11 The glory of Ephraim will fly away like a bird— no birth, no pregnancy, not even a conception.
12 Even if they rear their children, I will, in turn, make them childless— in fact, woe to them when I turn away from them!
13 Ephraim, as I see it, is like Tyre, planted in a comfortable place; Ephraim will bear children but they will be executed.”
14 Give them, LORD— What will you give? You will give them a womb that miscarries and dry breasts.
15 “All of their wickedness started i in Gilgal, because I began to hate them there. Because of the wickedness of their behavior, I will drive them from my Temple. I will not love them anymore; all their leaders are rebels.
16 Ephraim is blighted; j its roots shriveled. It can bear no fruit. Even if they bear children, I will kill their cherished offspring.
17 “My God will reject them, because they did not obey him, and they will become wanderers among the nations.”