Hosea
5* Listen to this, priests, and pay attention, house of Israel, and give ear, house of the king, because justice is your business, but you have been a snare at Mispah and a spread net on Tabor 2* and a deep pit at Shittim, and none of them have anybody to turn them off. 3 I know about Ephraim, and about Israel it is not kept dark from me, how you, Ephraim, are now taking part in prostitution, Israel is being defiled; 4 their practices will not let them come back to their God, because they have within them a spirit of unchastity and do not know Jehovah. 5 And Israel’s pride testifies to his face; and Israel and Ephraim stumble by their guilt, Judah too stumbles with them. 6 With their sheep and horned cattle they go looking for Jehovah and do not find him; he has taken himself out of their way. 7* They have played Jehovah false, because they have been having alien children; now a new moon will eat up their portions.
8* Blow a ram-horn at Gibeah, a trumpet at Ramah; sound an alarm at Beth-Aven; they are after you, Benjamin! 9 Ephraim shall become a desolation on a day of chastisement; among the tribes of Israel I give reliable notice. 10 Judah’s generals have been like those that displace a boundary-mark; I will pour out my wrath on them like water.
11* Ephraim is denied justice, is persecuted in judgment, because they insisted on following a mandate. 12 And I am like a moth to Ephraim, and like dry-rot to the house of Judah. 13** And Ephraim saw its disease, and Judah its festering; and Ephraim went to Assyria and sent to King Jareb, but he will not be able to cure you nor you get over festering. 14 For I am like a lion to Ephraim, like a two-year-old lion to the house of Judah; I, I, I pounce and go, 15 I carry off and nobody rescues, back to my place I go, till they pay up their penalty and seek my face; when they are in distress they will go in quest of me.