Hosea 8

¹ Put the trumpet to your lips!
One like a vulture is over the house of the LORD,
because they have broken my covenant
and rebelled against my law.

² They cry out to me,
"My God, we — Israel — know you!"

³ Israel has rejected what is good;
an enemy will pursue him.

⁴ They set up kings, but not through me;
they appointed leaders, but I did not approve.
With their silver and gold they made idols
for their own destruction.

⁵ Your calf is rejected, O Samaria!
My anger burns against them.
How long will they be incapable of innocence?

⁶ For it is from Israel —
a craftsman made it;
it is not God.
The calf of Samaria
will be smashed to pieces.

⁷ For they sow the wind,
and they will reap the whirlwind.
The standing grain has no heads;
it will produce no flour.
If it should produce,
foreigners would swallow it up.

⁸ Israel is swallowed up.
Now they are among the nations
like a vessel no one wants.

⁹ For they have gone up to Assyria —
a wild donkey wandering alone.
Ephraim has hired lovers.

¹⁰ Even though they hire allies among the nations,
I will now gather them up,
and they will begin to waste away
under the burden of the king of princes.

¹¹ Because Ephraim has multiplied altars for sinning,
they have become altars for sinning.

¹² Though I write for him ten thousand instructions of my law,
they are regarded as something foreign.

¹³ As for my sacrificial gifts —
they sacrifice meat and eat it,
but the LORD does not accept them.
Now he will remember their guilt
and punish their sins;
they will return to Egypt.

¹⁴ Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces;
Judah has multiplied fortified cities.
But I will send fire on his cities,
and it will consume her fortresses.