Hosea - Chapter 4

¹ Israelites, hear what Yahweh says, for Yahweh indicts the citizens of the country: there is no loyalty, no faithful love, no knowledge of God in the country,

² only perjury and lying, murder, theft, adultery and violence, bloodshed after bloodshed.

³ This is why the country is in mourning and all its citizens pining away, the wild animals also and birds of the sky, even the fish in the sea will disappear.

⁴ But let no one denounce, no one rebuke; it is you, priest, that I denounce.

⁵ Priest, you will stumble in broad daylight, and the prophet will stumble with you in the dark, and I will make your mother perish.

⁶ My people perish for want of knowledge. Since you yourself have rejected knowledge, so I shall reject you from my priesthood; since you have forgotten the teaching of your God, I in my turn shall forget your children.

⁷ The more of them there have been, the more they have sinned against me; they have bartered their Glory for Shame.

⁸ They feed on the sin of my people, they are greedy for their iniquity.

⁹ But as with the people, so with the priest, I shall punish them for their conduct, I shall pay them back for their deeds.

¹⁰ They will eat but never be satisfied, they will play the whore but not grow more prolific, since they have deserted Yahweh to give themselves up

¹¹ to whoring. Old wine and new wine addle my people's wits,

¹² they consult their block of wood, and their stick explains what they should do. For an urge to go whoring has led them astray and whoring they go and desert their God;

¹³ they offer sacrifice on the mountain tops, they burn incense on the hills, under oak and poplar and terebinth, for pleasant is their shade. So, although your daughters play the whore and your daughters-in-law commit adultery,

¹⁴ I shall not punish your daughters for playing the whore nor your daughters-in-law for committing adultery, when the men themselves are wandering off with whores and offering sacrifice with sacred prostitutes, for a people with no understanding is doomed.

¹⁵ Though you, Israel, play the whore, there is no need for Judah to sin too. Do not go to Gilgal, do not go up to Beth-Aven, do not swear oaths 'by Yahweh's life',

¹⁶ for Israel is as stubborn as a stubborn heifer; so is Yahweh likely to pasture him like a lamb in a broad meadow?

¹⁷ Ephraim has made a pact with idols- let him alone!

¹⁸ Their drunken orgy over, they do nothing but play the whore, preferring Shame to their Pride;

¹⁹ the wind with its wings will carry them off and their sacrifices will bring them nothing but disgrace.