Hosea 5

Leaders under judgment

1“Hear this, priests!
Pay attention, house of Israel!
Listen, royal house!
Judgment concerns you,
for you have been a trap at Mizpah
and a net spread over Tabor. 2The rebels have sunk deep into slaughter,
but I will discipline them all. 3I know Ephraim;
Israel is not hidden from me.
Now you have prostituted yourself, Ephraim;
Israel is defiled. 4Their deeds will not let them
return to their God.
A spirit of prostitution is within them,
and they do not know the LORD. 5Israel’s pride testifies against him.
Israel and Ephraim stumble in their guilt;
Judah too stumbles with them. 6With their flocks and herds
they will go to seek the LORD,
but they will not find him.
He has withdrawn from them. 7They have betrayed the LORD;
they have borne children who are strangers.
Now a new moon will devour them
and their fields.

The alarm sounds

8Blow the ram’s horn in Gibeah,
the trumpet in Ramah!
Sound the alarm in Beth-aven!
Behind you, Benjamin! 9Ephraim will become a wasteland
on the day of reckoning.
Among Israel’s tribes
I have announced what is certain. 10Judah’s rulers have become
like those who move boundary stones.
I will pour my fury over them like water. 11Ephraim is oppressed, crushed in judgment,
because he was determined to follow a command. 12I am like a moth to Ephraim,
like rot to the house of Judah. 13Ephraim saw his sickness
and Judah his wound.
Ephraim went to Assyria
and sent to the contending king.
But he cannot heal you
or cure your wound. 14For I am like a lion to Ephraim,
like a young lion to the house of Judah.
I myself will tear and go away;
I will carry off, and no one will rescue. 15I will go back to my place
until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face.
In their distress they will seek me earnestly.”