Hosea 4:5

How could one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, and Yahweh had delivered them up?

But you have come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable multitudes of angels,

I saw when, for this very cause, that backsliding Israel had committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a certificate of divorce, yet treacherous Judah, her sister, had no fear; but she also went and played the prostitute.

But Yahweh says, “Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the plunder retrieved from the fierce, for I will contend with him who contends with you and I will save your children.

The pride of Israel testifies to his face; yet they haven’t returned to Yahweh their God, nor sought him, for all this.

He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God, and he will go out from there no more. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from my God, and my own new name.

Now a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, saying, “Your servant my husband is dead. You know that your servant feared Yahweh. Now the creditor has come to take for himself my two children to be slaves.”

Yet now our flesh is as the flesh of our brothers, our children as their children. Behold, we bring our sons and our daughters into bondage to be servants, and some of our daughters have been brought into bondage. It is also not in our power to help it, because other men have our fields and our vineyards.”

Neither shall there be any work for Egypt, which head or tail, palm branch or rush, may do.

“Your own wickedness will correct you, and your backsliding will rebuke you. Know therefore and see that it is an evil and bitter thing, that you have forsaken Yahweh your God, and that my fear is not in you,” says the Lord, Yahweh of Armies.

“Prepare war against her! Arise! Let’s go up at noon. Woe to us! For the day declines, for the shadows of the evening are stretched out.

Though our iniquities testify against us, work for your name’s sake, Yahweh; for our rebellions are many. We have sinned against you.

Their widows are increased more than the sand of the seas. I have brought on them against the mother of the young men a destroyer at noonday. I have caused anguish and terrors to fall on her suddenly.

Contend with your mother! Contend, for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband; and let her put away her prostitution from her face, and her adulteries from between her breasts;

But because he couldn’t pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, with his wife, his children, and all that he had, and payment to be made.

For our citizenship is in heaven, from where we also wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,

I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband.

You shall break down their altars, dash their pillars in pieces, and burn their Asherah poles with fire. You shall cut down the engraved images of their gods. You shall destroy their name out of that place.

Yahweh said to him, ‘How?’ He said, ‘I will go out and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ He said, ‘You will entice him, and will also prevail. Go out and do so.’

How the faithful city has become a prostitute! She was full of justice. Righteousness lodged in her, but now there are murderers.

Yahweh, the Redeemer of Israel, and his Holy One, says to him whom man despises, to him whom the nation abhors, to a servant of rulers: “Kings shall see and rise up, princes, and they shall worship, because of Yahweh who is faithful, even the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.”

For Yahweh says, “You were sold for nothing; and you will be redeemed without money.”

“Your way and your doings have brought these things to you. This is your wickedness; for it is bitter, for it reaches to your heart.”

“You shall say this to them: ‘The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth will perish from the earth, and from under the heavens.’ ”

Her cities have become a desolation, a dry land, and a desert, a land in which no man dwells. No son of man passes by it.

In all your dwelling places, the cities will be laid waste and the high places will be desolate; that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, and your idols may be broken and cease, and your incense altars may be cut down, and your works may be abolished.

that I may take the house of Israel in their own heart, because they are all estranged from me through their idols.” ’

Righteous men will judge them with the judgment of adulteresses and with the judgment of women who shed blood; because they are adulteresses, and blood is in their hands.

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness, and from all your idols.

For she didn’t know that I gave her the grain, the new wine, and the oil, and multiplied to her silver and gold, which they used for Baal.

For I will take away the names of the Baals out of her mouth, and they will no longer be mentioned by name.

Yahweh said to me, “Go again, love a woman loved by another, and an adulteress, even as Yahweh loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods, and love cakes of raisins.”

I heard, and my body trembled. My lips quivered at the voice. Rottenness enters into my bones, and I tremble in my place, because I must wait quietly for the day of trouble, for the coming up of the people who invade us.

They began to accuse him, saying, “We found this man perverting the nation, forbidding paying taxes to Caesar, and saying that he himself is Christ, a king.”

Therefore in one day her plagues will come: death, mourning, and famine; and she will be utterly burned with fire; for the Lord God who has judged her is strong.

“Be careful to do all things that I have said to you; and don’t invoke the name of other gods or even let them be heard out of your mouth.

When a man takes a wife and marries her, then it shall be, if she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some unseemly thing in her, that he shall write her a certificate of divorce, put it in her hand, and send her out of his house.

You have taken my friends from me. You have made me an abomination to them. I am confined, and I can’t escape.

Don’t say, “Why were the former days better than these?” For you do not ask wisely about this.

Oh that you were like my brother, who nursed from the breasts of my mother! If I found you outside, I would kiss you; yes, and no one would despise me.

I would lead you, bringing you into the house of my mother, who would instruct me. I would have you drink spiced wine, of the juice of my pomegranate.

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering and acquainted with disease. He was despised as one from whom men hide their face; and we didn’t respect him.

For our transgressions are multiplied before you, and our sins testify against us; for our transgressions are with us, and as for our iniquities, we know them:

Surely the islands will wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish first, to bring your sons from far, their silver and their gold with them, for the name of Yahweh your God, and for the Holy One of Israel, because he has glorified you.

But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for, behold, I create Jerusalem to be a delight, and her people a joy.

“Before she travailed, she gave birth. Before her pain came, she delivered a son.

“Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her, all you who love her. Rejoice for joy with her, all you who mourn over her;

“They say, ‘If a man puts away his wife, and she goes from him, and becomes another man’s, should he return to her again?’ Wouldn’t that land be greatly polluted? But you have played the prostitute with many lovers; yet return again to me,” says Yahweh.

Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have transgressed against Yahweh your God, and have scattered your ways to the strangers under every green tree, and you have not obeyed my voice,’ says Yahweh.”

They are vanity, a work of delusion. In the time of their visitation they will perish.

Therefore deliver up their children to the famine, and give them over to the power of the sword. Let their wives become childless and widows. Let their men be killed and their young men struck by the sword in battle.

You have built your lofty place at the head of every way, and have made your beauty an abomination, and have opened your feet to everyone who passed by, and multiplied your prostitution.

You are the daughter of your mother, who loathes her husband and her children; and you are the sister of your sisters, who loathed their husbands and their children. Your mother was a Hittite, and your father an Amorite.

“ ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “I will also destroy the idols, and I will cause the images to cease from Memphis. There will be no more a prince from the land of Egypt. I will put a fear in the land of Egypt.

When Yahweh spoke at first by Hosea, Yahweh said to Hosea, “Go, take for yourself a wife of prostitution and children of unfaithfulness; for the land commits great adultery, forsaking Yahweh.”

I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees, about which she has said, ‘These are my wages that my lovers have given me; and I will make them a forest,’ and the animals of the field shall eat them.

They are unfaithful to Yahweh; for they have borne illegitimate children. Now the new moon will devour them with their fields.

“So you will know that I am Yahweh, your God, dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain. Then Jerusalem will be holy, and no strangers will pass through her any more.

“The virgin of Israel has fallen; She shall rise no more. She is cast down on her land; there is no one to raise her up.”

One who hates and divorces”, says Yahweh, the God of Israel, “covers his garment with violence!” says Yahweh of Armies. “Therefore pay attention to your spirit, that you don’t be unfaithful.

They asked him, “Why then did Moses command us to give her a certificate of divorce, and divorce her?”

The world can’t hate you, but it hates me, because I testify about it, that its works are evil.

If therefore the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

For sin will not have dominion over you. For you are not under law, but under grace.

Being made free from sin, you became bondservants of righteousness.

For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, sold under sin.

For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the servant, and one by the free woman.

and cinnamon, incense, perfume, frankincense, wine, olive oil, fine flour, wheat, sheep, horses, chariots, and people’s bodies and souls.

Therefore Yahweh’s anger burned against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of Cushan Rishathaim king of Mesopotamia; and the children of Israel served Cushan Rishathaim eight years.

But there was no one like Ahab, who sold himself to do that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up.

They caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, to provoke him to anger.

Therefore Yahweh will cut off from Israel head and tail, palm branch and reed, in one day.

Yahweh says, “Where is the bill of your mother’s divorce, with which I have put her away? Or to which of my creditors have I sold you? Behold, you were sold for your iniquities, and your mother was put away for your transgressions.

“Tell the nations, behold, publish against Jerusalem, ‘Watchers come from a far country, and raise their voice against the cities of Judah.

Therefore a lion out of the forest will kill them. A wolf of the evenings will destroy them. A leopard will watch against their cities. Everyone who goes out there will be torn in pieces, because their transgressions are many and their backsliding has increased.

What has my beloved to do in my house, since she has behaved lewdly with many, and the holy flesh has passed from you? When you do evil, then you rejoice.”

Concerning the prophets: My heart within me is broken. All my bones shake. I am like a drunken man, and like a man whom wine has overcome, because of Yahweh, and because of his holy words.

At the end of seven years, every man of you shall release his brother who is a Hebrew, who has been sold to you, and has served you six years. You shall let him go free from you; but your fathers didn’t listen to me, and didn’t incline their ear.

your mother will be utterly disappointed. She who bore you will be confounded. Behold, she will be the least of the nations, a wilderness, a dry land, and a desert.

For their mother has played the prostitute. She who conceived them has done shamefully; for she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’

The pride of Israel testifies to his face. Therefore Israel and Ephraim will stumble in their iniquity. Judah also will stumble with them.

Israel is swallowed up. Now they are among the nations like a worthless thing.

So Bethel will do to you because of your great wickedness. At daybreak the king of Israel will be destroyed.

“For, behold, Yahweh commands, and the great house will be smashed to pieces, and the little house into bits.

I cut off the three shepherds in one month; for my soul was weary of them, and their soul also loathed me.

It will come to pass in that day, says Yahweh of Armies, that I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they will be remembered no more. I will also cause the prophets and the spirit of impurity to pass out of the land.

But the Jerusalem that is above is free, which is the mother of us all.