Hosea 9:14

For behold, the days are coming in which they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.’

Now concerning the things about which you wrote to me: it is good for a man not to touch a woman.

But I say to the unmarried and to widows, it is good for them if they remain even as I am.

No one will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will fulfill the number of your days.

The fortress shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria. They will be as the glory of the children of Israel,” says Yahweh of Armies.

Samaria will bear her guilt; for she has rebelled against her God. They will fall by the sword. Their infants will be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women will be ripped open.”

The fruit of your body, the fruit of your ground, the increase of your livestock, and the young of your flock will be cursed.

He said, “At this season, when the time comes around, you will embrace a son.” She said, “No, my lord, you man of God, do not lie to your servant.”

If his children are multiplied, it is for the sword. His offspring will not be satisfied with bread.

Yes, better than them both is him who has not yet been, who has not seen the evil work that is done under the sun.

‘Speak to the house of Israel, “The Lord Yahweh says: ‘Behold, I will profane my sanctuary, the pride of your power, the desire of your eyes, and that which your soul pities; and your sons and your daughters whom you have left behind will fall by the sword.

and tell Tyre, ‘You who dwell at the entry of the sea, who are the merchant of the peoples to many islands, the Lord Yahweh says: “You, Tyre, have said, ‘I am perfect in beauty.’

As they were multiplied, so they sinned against me. I will change their glory into shame.

Though they bring up their children, yet I will bereave them, so that not a man shall be left. Indeed, woe also to them when I depart from them!

The inhabitants of Samaria will be in terror for the calves of Beth Aven; for its people will mourn over it, Along with its priests who rejoiced over it, for its glory, because it has departed from it.

It came to pass, as he said these things, a certain woman out of the multitude lifted up her voice, and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts which nursed you!”

redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved, to fill up their sins always. But wrath has come on them to the uttermost.

When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister. She said to Jacob, “Give me children, or else I will die.”

and behold, seven heads of grain, withered, thin, and blasted with the east wind, sprung up after them.

The name of the second, he called Ephraim: “For God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.”

“Joseph is a fruitful vine, a fruitful vine by a spring. His branches run over the wall.

If a man lies with his uncle’s wife, he has uncovered his uncle’s nakedness. They shall bear their sin. They shall die childless.

You will eat the flesh of your sons, and you will eat the flesh of your daughters.

All the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, “We wish that we had died in the land of Egypt, or that we had died in this wilderness!

Yahweh will grant you abundant prosperity in the fruit of your body, in the fruit of your livestock, and in the fruit of your ground, in the land which Yahweh swore to your fathers to give you.

You will eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters, whom Yahweh your God has given you, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies will distress you.

toward her young one who comes out from between her feet, and toward her children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of all things in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy will distress you in your gates.

Majesty belongs to the firstborn of his herd. His horns are the horns of the wild ox. With them he will push all the peoples to the ends of the earth. They are the ten thousands of Ephraim. They are the thousands of Manasseh.”

Elkanah her husband said to her, “Do what seems good to you. Wait until you have weaned him; only may Yahweh establish his word.” So the woman waited and nursed her son until she weaned him.

Now Jonathan, Saul’s son, had a son who was lame in his feet. He was five years old when the news came about Saul and Jonathan out of Jezreel; and his nurse picked him up and fled. As she hurried to flee, he fell and became lame. His name was Mephibosheth.

When the sons of the prophets who were at Jericho facing him saw him, they said, “The spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha.” They came to meet him, and bowed themselves to the ground before him.

The men of the city said to Elisha, “Behold, please, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my lord sees; but the water is bad, and the land is barren.”

The king said to her, “What is your problem?” She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’

Then Menahem attacked Tiphsah, and all who were in it, and its border areas, from Tirzah. He attacked it because they didn’t open their gates to him, and he ripped up all their women who were with child.

“Why didn’t I die from the womb? Why didn’t I give up the spirit when my mother bore me?

But man dies, and is laid low. Yes, man gives up the spirit, and where is he?

It will be accomplished before his time. His branch will not be green.

“Yes, the light of the wicked will be put out. The spark of his fire won’t shine.

His roots will be dried up beneath. His branch will be cut off above.

Their bulls breed without fail. Their cows calve, and don’t miscarry.

who said to God, ‘Depart from us;’ and, ‘What can the Almighty do for us?’

Let them be like a snail which melts and passes away, like the stillborn child, who has not seen the sun.

I have relied on you from the womb. You are he who took me out of my mother’s womb. I will always praise you.

If a man fathers a hundred children, and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul is not filled with good, and moreover he has no burial; I say, that a stillborn child is better than he:

Therefore as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as the dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust, because they have rejected the law of Yahweh of Armies, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

In the day of your planting, you hedge it in. In the morning, you make your seed blossom, but the harvest flees away in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.

The fading flower of his glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fertile valley, shall be like the first-ripe fig before the summer; which someone picks and eats as soon as he sees it.

They are planted scarcely. They are sown scarcely. Their stock has scarcely taken root in the ground. He merely blows on them, and they wither, and the whirlwind takes them away as stubble.

For death has come up into our windows. It has entered into our palaces to cut off the children from outside, and the young men from the streets.

Woe is me, my mother, that you have borne me, a man of strife, and a man of contention to the whole earth! I have not lent, neither have men lent to me; yet every one of them curses me.

“You shall not take a wife, neither shall you have sons or daughters, in this place.”

Yahweh of Armies says: “Behold, I will send on them the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, and will make them like rotten figs that can’t be eaten, they are so bad.

My eyes fail with tears. My heart is troubled. My liver is poured on the earth, because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because the young children and the infants swoon in the streets of the city.

The hands of the pitiful women have boiled their own children. They were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.

Ephraim is oppressed, he is crushed in judgment; Because he is intent in his pursuit of idols.

For they sow the wind, and they will reap the whirlwind. He has no standing grain. The stalk will yield no head. If it does yield, strangers will swallow it up.

As for Ephraim, their glory will fly away like a bird. There will be no birth, no one with child, and no conception.

I have seen Ephraim, like Tyre, planted in a pleasant place; but Ephraim will bring out his children to the murderer.

Ephraim is struck. Their root has dried up. They will bear no fruit. Even though they give birth, yet I will kill the beloved ones of their womb.”

Therefore a battle roar will arise among your people, and all your fortresses will be destroyed, as Shalman destroyed Beth Arbel in the day of battle. The mother was dashed in pieces with her children.

I will meet them like a bear that is bereaved of her cubs, and will tear the covering of their heart. There I will devour them like a lioness. The wild animal will tear them.

Yahweh says: “For three transgressions of the children of Ammon, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because they have ripped open the pregnant women of Gilead, that they may enlarge their border.

Therefore Yahweh says: ‘Your wife shall be a prostitute in the city, and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be divided by line; and you yourself shall die in a land that is unclean, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of his land.’ ”

“For, behold, the day comes, it burns as a furnace; and all the proud, and all who work wickedness, will be stubble; and the day that comes will burn them up,” says Yahweh of Armies, “that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.

But woe to those who are with child and to nursing mothers in those days!

But woe to those who are with child and to those who nurse babies in those days!

“Now there was a certain rich man, and he was clothed in purple and fine linen, living in luxury every day.

Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who nurse infants in those days! For there will be great distress in the land, and wrath to this people.

Therefore I think that because of the distress that is on us, that it’s good for a man to remain as he is.

But if you marry, you have not sinned. If a virgin marries, she has not sinned. Yet such will have oppression in the flesh, and I want to spare you.

So then both he who gives his own virgin in marriage does well, and he who doesn’t give her in marriage does better.