I will put an end to all her celebration: her annual religious festivals, monthly new moon celebrations, and weekly Sabbath festivities – all her appointed festivals.

They consult their wooden idols, and their diviner’s staff answers with an oracle. The wind of prostitution blows them astray; they commit spiritual adultery against their God.

Although Ephraim has built many altars for sin offerings, these have become altars for sinning!

Therefore, I will soon fence her in with thorns; I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way.

However, in the future I will allure her; I will lead her back into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.

For I will remove the names of the Baal idols from your lips, so that you will never again utter their names!”

I will deal with the people and priests together: I will punish them both for their ways, and I will repay them for their deeds.

A sword will flash in their cities, it will destroy the bars of their city gates, and will devour them in their fortresses.

Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God, for your sin has been your downfall!

They will return in fear and trembling like birds from Egypt, like doves from Assyria, and I will settle them in their homes,” declares the Lord.

The Lord also has a covenant lawsuit against Judah; he will punish Jacob according to his ways and repay him according to his deeds.

Where then is your king, that he may save you in all your cities? Where are your rulers for whom you asked, saying, “Give me a king and princes”?

Then the Lord said to Hosea, “Name him ‘Jezreel,’ because in a little while I will punish the dynasty of Jehu on account of the bloodshed in the valley of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of Israel.

Plead earnestly with your mother (for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband), so that she might put an end to her adulterous lifestyle, and turn away from her sexually immoral behavior.

Otherwise, I will strip her naked, and expose her like she was when she was born. I will turn her land into a wilderness and make her country a parched land, so that I might kill her with thirst.

Hear the word of the Lord, you Israelites! For the Lord has a covenant lawsuit against the people of Israel. For there is neither faithfulness nor loyalty in the land, nor do they acknowledge God.

They turn to Baal; they are like an unreliable bow. Their leaders will fall by the sword because their prayers to Baal have made me angry. So people will disdain them in the land of Egypt.