Hosea 5
New Catholic Bible
Chapter 5
I Shall Punish Them All
1 Hear this, O priests!
Listen closely, O house of Israel!
Give heed, O house of the king,
for you will be called to judgment!
For you have been a snare at Mizpah,[a]
and a net spread out upon Tabor,
2 and a deep pit at Shittim;
I shall punish all of them.
3 I know Ephraim,
and Israel is not hidden from me.
Despite this, O Ephraim, you have played the harlot,
and Israel is defiled.
4 Their deeds do not allow them
to return to their God.
For the spirit of immorality has possessed them,
and they no longer know the Lord.
5 Israel’s arrogance testifies against them;
Ephraim stumbles in their guilt,
and Judah stumbles with them.
6 With their sheep and their cattle,
they shall go forth to seek the Lord.
However, they will not find him,
for he has withdrawn from them.
7 They have betrayed the Lord,
for they have borne illegitimate children.[b]
Now the new moon shall devour them
along with their fields.
War between Israel and Judah[c]
8 Blow the horn in Gibeah,[d]
the trumpet in Ramah.
Sound the alarm at Beth-aven:
“Look behind you, O Benjamin!”
9 Ephraim shall become a wasteland
on the day of punishment.
Against the tribes of Israel
I have decreed certain doom.
10 The rulers of Judah act like men
who move their neighbor’s boundary line.
On them I will pour out
my wrath like a flood.
11 Ephraim is oppressed, crushed in judgment,
being intent on pursuing idols.
12 Therefore, I am like an infectious sore for Ephraim,
like maggots for the house of Judah.
13 When Ephraim realized that he was ill
and Judah noted that he was covered with sores,
Ephraim went to Assyria,
and Judah sent envoys to the great king.
However, he has no power to cure you
or to heal your sores.
14 For I will be like a lion to Ephraim,
like a young lion to the house of Judah.
I myself will maul them and depart;
I will carry them off,
and no one will be able to rescue them.
15 I shall go back to my dwelling place
until they acknowledge their guilt
and seek my presence.[e]
In their affliction,
they will beseech my favor.
Footnotes
- Hosea 5:1 Mizpah . . . Tabor: places of idolatrous worship.
- Hosea 5:7 Illegitimate children: the description continues the image of marital infidelity: the mother of these children had given herself to Baal.
- Hosea 5:8 In 734 B.C., the northern kingdom endeavored, with the help of Syria, to take possession of Judah. Judah called on Assyria, and the threat was removed, so much so that the Judeans pursued the armies of Israel and annexed territories not belonging to them. Both countries had entered into alliances with pagans, making pacts with nothingness instead of relying on God.
- Hosea 5:8 Gibeah and Ramah were in Judah; Beth-aven was in Israel. All three were on the border between the two kingdoms.
- Hosea 5:15 Seeking to lead his people to repent, the Lord withdraws his presence from them.
