Hosea 9 – Christian Standard Bible (CSB)

1 Israel, do not rejoice jubilantly as the nations do,

for you have acted promiscuously, leaving your God.

You love the wages of a prostitute

on every grain-threshing floor.

2 Threshing floor and wine vat will not sustain them,

and the new wine will fail them.

3 They will not stay in the land of the LORD.

Instead, Ephraim will return to Egypt,

and they will eat unclean food in Assyria.

4 They will not pour out

their wine offerings to the LORD,

and their sacrifices will not please him.

Their food will be like the bread of mourners;

all who eat it become defiled.

For their bread will be for their appetites alone;

it will not enter the house of the LORD.

5 What will you do on a festival day,

on the day of the LORD’s feast?

6 For even if they flee from devastation,

Egypt will gather them, and Memphis will bury them.

Thistles will take possession of their precious silver;

thorns will invade their tents.

7 The days of punishment have come;

the days of retribution have come.

Let Israel recognize it!

The prophet is a fool,

and the inspired man is insane,

because of the magnitude

of your iniquity and hostility.

8 Ephraim’s watchman is with my God.

Yet the prophet encounters a bird trap

on all his pathways.

Hostility is in the house of his God!

9 They have deeply corrupted themselves

as in the days of Gibeah.

He will remember their iniquity;

he will punish their sins.

10 I discovered Israel

like grapes in the wilderness.

I saw your ancestors

like the first fruit of the fig tree in its first season.

But they went to Baal-peor,

consecrated themselves to Shame,[fn]

and became abhorrent,

like the thing they loved.

11 Ephraim’s glory will fly away like a bird:

no birth, no pregnancy, no conception.

12 Even if they raise children,

I will bereave them of each one.

Yes, woe to them when I depart from them!

13 I have seen Ephraim like Tyre,

planted in a meadow,

so Ephraim will bring out his children

to the executioner.

14 Give them, LORD —

What should you give?

Give them a womb that miscarries

and breasts that are dry!

15 All their evil appears at Gilgal,

for there I began to hate them.

I will drive them from my house

because of their evil, wicked actions.

I will no longer love them;

all their leaders are rebellious.

16 Ephraim is struck down;

their roots are withered;

they cannot bear fruit.

Even if they bear children,

I will kill the precious offspring of their wombs.

17 My God will reject them

because they have not listened to him;

they will become wanderers among the nations.