Hosea - The Old Testament

¹ Come, let us return to Yahweh. He has rent us and he will heal us; he has struck us and he will bind up our wounds;

² after two days he will revive us, on the third day he will raise us up and we shall live in his presence.

³ Let us know, let us strive to know Yahweh; that he will come is as certain as the dawn. He will come to us like a shower, like the rain of springtime to the earth.

⁴ What am I to do with you, Ephraim? What am I to do with you, Judah? For your love is like morning mist, like the dew that quickly disappears.

⁵ This is why I have hacked them to pieces by means of the prophets, why I have killed them with words from my mouth, why my sentence will blaze forth like the dawn-

⁶ for faithful love is what pleases me, not sacrifice; knowledge of God, not burnt offerings.

⁷ But they have broken the covenant at Adam, there they have betrayed me.

⁸ Gilead is a city of evil-doers, full of bloody footprints.

⁹ Like so many robbers in ambush, a gang of priests commits murder on the road to Shechem- what infamous behaviour!

¹⁰ At Bethel I have seen a horrible thing; there Ephraim plays the whore, Israel is befouled.

¹¹ For you too, Judah, a harvest is in store, when I restore my people's fortunes.