Hosea 11-14

New International Version - UK

⁵ ‘Will they not return to Egypt
    and will not Assyria rule over them
    because they refuse to repent?
⁶ A sword will flash in their cities;
    it will devour their false prophets
    and put an end to their plans.
⁷ My people are determined to turn from me.
    Even though they call me God Most High,
    I will by no means exalt them.

⁸ ‘How can I give you up, Ephraim?
    How can I hand you over, Israel?
How can I treat you like Admah?
    How can I make you like Zeboyim?
My heart is changed within me;
    all my compassion is aroused.
⁹ I will not carry out my fierce anger,
    nor will I devastate Ephraim again.
For I am God, and not a man –
    the Holy One among you.
    I will not come against their cities.
¹⁰ They will follow the Lord;
    he will roar like a lion.
When he roars,
    his children will come trembling from the west.
¹¹ They will come from Egypt,
    trembling like sparrows,
    from Assyria, fluttering like doves.
I will settle them in their homes,’
    declares the Lord.

⁷ The merchant uses dishonest scales
    and loves to defraud.
⁸ Ephraim boasts,
    ‘I am very rich; I have become wealthy.
With all my wealth they will not find in me
    any iniquity or sin.’

⁹ ‘I have been the Lord your God
    ever since you came out of Egypt;
I will make you live in tents again,
    as in the days of your appointed festivals.
¹⁰ I spoke to the prophets,
    gave them many visions
    and told parables through them.’

¹¹ Is Gilead wicked?
    Its people are worthless!
Do they sacrifice bulls in Gilgal?
    Their altars will be like piles of stones
    on a ploughed field.
¹² Jacob fled to the country of Aram^[e];
    Israel served to get a wife,
    and to pay for her he tended sheep.
¹³ The Lord used a prophet to bring Israel up from Egypt,
    by a prophet he cared for him.
¹⁴ But Ephraim has aroused his bitter anger;
    his Lord will leave on him the guilt of his bloodshed
    and will repay him for his contempt.

⁴ ‘But I have been the Lord your God
    ever since you came out of Egypt.
You shall acknowledge no God but me,
    no Saviour except me.
⁵ I cared for you in the wilderness,
    in the land of burning heat.
⁶ When I fed them, they were satisfied;
    when they were satisfied, they became proud;
    then they forgot me.
⁷ So I will be like a lion to them,
    like a leopard I will lurk by the path.
⁸ Like a bear robbed of her cubs,
    I will attack them and rip them open;
like a lion I will devour them –
    a wild animal will tear them apart.

⁹ ‘You are destroyed, Israel,
    because you are against me, against your helper.
¹⁰ Where is your king, that he may save you?
    Where are your rulers in all your towns,
of whom you said,
    “Give me a king and princes”?
¹¹ So in my anger I gave you a king,
    and in my wrath I took him away.
¹² The guilt of Ephraim is stored up,
    his sins are kept on record.
¹³ Pains as of a woman in childbirth come to him,
    but he is a child without wisdom;
when the time arrives,
    he doesn’t have the sense to come out of the womb.

¹⁴ ‘I will deliver this people from the power of the grave;
    I will redeem them from death.
Where, O death, are your plagues?
    Where, O grave, is your destruction?

‘I will have no compassion,
¹⁵     even though he thrives among his brothers.
An east wind from the Lord will come,
    blowing in from the desert;
his spring will fail
    and his well dry up.
His storehouse will be plundered
    of all its treasures.
¹⁶ The people of Samaria must bear their guilt,
    because they have rebelled against their God.
They will fall by the sword;
    their little ones will be dashed to the ground,
    their pregnant women ripped open.’^[g]

⁴ ‘I will heal their waywardness
    and love them freely,
    for my anger has turned away from them.
⁵ I will be like the dew to Israel;
    he will blossom like a lily.
Like a cedar of Lebanon
    he will send down his roots;
⁶     his young shoots will grow.
His splendour will be like an olive tree,
    his fragrance like a cedar of Lebanon.
⁷ People will dwell again in his shade;
    they will flourish like the corn,
they will blossom like the vine –
    Israel’s fame will be like the wine of Lebanon.
⁸ Ephraim, what more have I^[j] to do with idols?
    I will answer him and care for him.
I am like a flourishing juniper;
    your fruitfulness comes from me.’

⁹ Who is wise? Let them realise these things.
    Who is discerning? Let them understand.
The ways of the Lord are right;
    the righteous walk in them,
    but the rebellious stumble in them.