Hosea 8

Israel Will Reap the Whirlwind

1Put 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.

2Israel cries out to Me,

“O our God, we know You!”

3But Israel has rejected good;

an enemy will pursue him.

4They 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.

5He has rejected your calf,a O Samaria.

My anger burns against them.

How long will they be

incapable of innocence?

6For this thing is from Israel—

a craftsman made it, and it is not God.

It will be broken to pieces,

that calf of Samaria.

7For 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.

8Israel is swallowed up!

Now they are among the nations

like a worthless vessel.

9For they have gone up to Assyria

like a wild donkey on its own.

Ephraimb has hired lovers.

10Though 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.

11Though Ephraim multiplied the altars for sin,

they became his altars for sinning.

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

they regarded them as something strange.

13Though 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.

14Israel 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.