Hosea 13

Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition

⁴ I am the Lord your God
    from the land of Egypt;
you know no God but me,
    and besides me there is no saviour.
⁵ It was I who knew you in the wilderness,
    in the land of drought;
⁶ but when they had fed^[b] to the full,
    they were filled, and their heart was lifted up;
    therefore they forgot me.
⁷ So I will be to them like a lion,
    like a leopard I will lurk beside the way.
⁸ I will fall upon them like a bear robbed of her cubs,
    I will tear open their breast,
and there I will devour them like a lion,
    as a wild beast would rend them.

⁹ I will destroy you, O Israel;
    who^[c] can help you?
¹⁰ Where^[d] now is your king, to save you;
    where are all^[e] your princes,^[f] to defend you^[g]—
those of whom you said,
    “Give me a king and princes”?
¹¹ I have given you kings in my anger,
    and I have taken them away in my wrath.

¹² The iniquity of E′phraim is bound up,
    his sin is kept in store.
¹³ The pangs of childbirth come for him,
    but he is an unwise son;
for now he does not present himself
    at the mouth of the womb.

¹⁴ Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol?
    Shall I redeem them from Death?
O Death, where^[h] are your plagues?
    O Sheol, where^[i] is your destruction?
    Compassion is hid from my eyes.

¹⁵ Though he may flourish as the reed plant,^[j]
    the east wind, the wind of the Lord, shall come,
    rising from the wilderness;
and his fountain shall dry up,
    his spring shall be parched;
it shall strip his treasury
    of every precious thing.
^16 [k] Samar′ia shall bear her guilt,
    because she has rebelled against her God;
they shall fall by the sword,
    their little ones shall be dashed in pieces,
    and their pregnant women ripped open.