When God Is Absent (Hosea: Part 8) (Hosea 9:1–17) - Pastor John Moore

⁴ They shall not pour drink offerings of wine to the Lord,
    and their sacrifices shall not please him.
It shall be like mourners' bread to them;
    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 the appointed festival,
    and on the day of the feast of the Lord?
⁶ For behold, they are going away from destruction;
    but Egypt shall gather them;
    Memphis shall bury them.
Nettles shall possess their precious things of silver;
    thorns shall be in their tents.

⁷ The days of punishment have come;
    the days of recompense have come;
    Israel shall know it.
The prophet is a fool;
    the man of the spirit is mad,
because of your great iniquity
    and great hatred.
⁸ The prophet is the watchman of Ephraim with my God;
yet a fowler's snare is on all his ways,
    and hatred 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 fathers.
But they came to Baal-peor
    and consecrated themselves to the 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 till none is left.
Woe to them
    when I depart from them!
¹³ Ephraim, as I have seen, was like a young palm planted in a meadow;
    but Ephraim must lead his children out to slaughter.
¹⁴ Give them, O Lord—
    what will you give?
Give them a miscarrying womb
    and dry breasts.

¹⁵ Every evil of theirs is in Gilgal;
    there I began 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 princes are rebels.

¹⁶ Ephraim is stricken;
    their root is dried up;
    they shall bear no fruit.
Even though they give birth,
    I will put their beloved children to death.
¹⁷ My God will reject them
    because they have not listened to him;
    they shall be wanderers among the nations.