Hosea 9

New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition

⁴ They shall not pour drink offerings of wine to the Lord,
    and their sacrifices shall not please him.
Such sacrifices shall be like mourners’ bread;
    all who eat of it shall be defiled;
for their bread shall be for their hunger only;
    it shall not come to the house of the Lord.

⁵ What will you do on the day of appointed festival,
    and on the day of the festival of the Lord?
⁶ For even if they escape destruction,
    Egypt shall gather them,
    Memphis shall bury them.
Nettles shall possess their precious things of silver;^[b]
    thorns shall be in their tents.

⁷ The days of punishment have come,
    the days of recompense have come;
    Israel cries,^[c]
“The prophet is a fool,
    the man of the spirit is mad!”
Because of your great iniquity,
    your hostility is great.
⁸ The prophet is a sentinel for my God over Ephraim,
yet a fowler’s snare is on all his ways,
    and hostility 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 Like grapes in the wilderness,
    I found Israel.
Like the first fruit on the fig tree,
    in its first season,
    I saw your ancestors.
But they came to Baal-peor,
    and consecrated themselves to a thing of shame,
    and became detestable like the thing they loved.
¹¹ Ephraim’s glory shall fly away like a bird—
    no birth, no pregnancy, no conception!
¹² Even if they bring up children,
    I will bereave them until no one is left.
Woe to them indeed
    when I depart from them!
¹³ Once I saw Ephraim as a young palm planted in a lovely meadow,^[d]
    but now Ephraim must lead out his children for slaughter.
¹⁴ Give them, O Lord—
    what will you give?
Give them a miscarrying womb
    and dry breasts.

¹⁵ Every evil of theirs began at Gilgal;
    there I came to hate them.
Because of the wickedness of their deeds
    I will drive them out of my house.
I will love them no more;
    all their officials are rebels.

¹⁶ Ephraim is stricken,
    their root is dried up,
    they shall bear no fruit.
Even though they give birth,
    I will kill the cherished offspring of their womb.
¹⁷ Because they have not listened to him,
    my God will reject them;
    they shall become wanderers among the nations.