Hosea 3:3

3:3 Then I told her, “You must live with me many days; you must not commit adultery or have sexual intercourse with ¹  another man, and I also will wait for you.”

Hosea 4:6

4:6 You have destroyed ²  my people

by failing to acknowledge me!

Because you refuse to acknowledge me, ³ 

I will reject you as my priests.

Because you reject ⁴  the law of your God,

I will reject ⁵  your descendants.

Hosea 5:3

5:3 I know Ephraim all too well; ⁶ 

the evil of ⁷  Israel is not hidden from me.

For you have engaged in prostitution, O Ephraim;

Israel has defiled itself. ⁸ 

¹ tn Heb “and you will not be for”; NIV “be intimate with.”

² tn Heb “they have destroyed” or “my people are destroyed” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV).

³ tn Heb “Because you reject knowledge”; NLT “because they don’t know me.”

⁴ tn Heb “have forgotten”; NAB, NIV “have ignored.”

⁵ tn Heb “forget” (so KJV, NRSV); NLT “forget to bless.”

³ tn The phrase “all too well” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for clarity and stylistic reasons.

⁴ tn The phrase “the evil of” does not appear in the Hebrew text here, but is implied by the metonymical (cause-effect) use of the term “Israel.” It is supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity. Cf. NCV “what they have done is not hidden from me.”

⁵ tn Or “Israel has become corrupt”; NCV “has made itself unclean”; TEV “are unfit to worship me.”