Assyria cannot save us; we will not ride warhorses. We will never again say, ‘Our gods’ to what our own hands have made. For only you will show compassion to Orphan Israel!”

They will eat, but not be satisfied; they will engage in prostitution, but not increase in numbers; because they have abandoned the Lord by pursuing other gods.

The Lord said to me, “Go, show love to your wife again, even though she loves another man and continually commits adultery. Likewise, the Lord loves the Israelites although they turn to other gods and love to offer raisin cakes to idols.”

Ephraim has attached himself to idols; Do not go near him!

For the Israelites must live many days without a king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred fertility pillar, without ephod or idols.

Israel was a fertile vine that yielded fruit. As his fruit multiplied, he multiplied altars to Baal. As his land prospered, they adorned the fertility pillars.

A whirlwind has wrapped them in its wings; they will be brought to shame because of their idolatrous worship.

I have seen a disgusting thing in the temple of Israel: there Ephraim practices temple prostitution and Judah defiles itself.

Foreigners are consuming what his strenuous labor produced, but he does not recognize it! His head is filled with gray hair, but he does not realize it!

They do not pray to me, but howl in distress on their beds; They slash themselves for grain and new wine, but turn away from me.

When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, he said to him, “Go marry a prostitute who will bear illegitimate children conceived through prostitution, because the nation continually commits spiritual prostitution by turning away from the Lord.”

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.

O Israel, do not rejoice jubilantly like the nations, for you are unfaithful to your God. You love to receive a prostitute's wages on all the floors where you thresh your grain.

O Ephraim, I do not want to have anything to do with idols anymore! I will answer him and care for him. I am like a luxuriant cypress tree; your fruitfulness comes from me!

I will not punish your daughters when they commit prostitution, nor your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery. For the men consort with harlots, they sacrifice with temple prostitutes. It is true: “A people that lacks understanding will come to ruin!”

Even now they persist in sin! They make metal images for themselves, idols that they skillfully fashion from their own silver; all of them are nothing but the work of craftsmen! There is a saying about them: “Those who sacrifice to the calf idol are calf kissers!”