Hosea, 8

¹ “To your mouth^*1—a horn!^*2 [One comes] like an eagle against the house of Jehovah, for the reason that they have overstepped my covenant, and against my law they have transgressed.

² To me they keep crying, ‘O my God, we, Israel, have known you.’

³ “Israel has cast off good. Let one who is an enemy pursue him.

⁴ They themselves have set up kings, but not because of me. They have set up princes, but I did not know [it]. With their silver and their gold they have made for themselves idols, to the end that they^*1 may be cut off.

⁵ Your calf has been cast off, O Sa·marʹi·a. My anger has grown hot against them. How long will they be incapable of innocency?

⁶ For from Israel was even this. A mere craftsman made it, and it is not God;^*1 because the calf of Sa·marʹi·a will become mere splinters.

⁷ “For it is wind^*1 that they keep sowing, and a storm wind is what they will reap. Nothing has standing grain. No sprout produces flour. Should any perhaps produce [it], strangers themselves will swallow it down.

⁸ “Israel must be swallowed down. Now they must come to be among the nations, like a vessel in which there is no delight.

⁹ For they themselves have gone up to As·syrʹi·a, as a zebra isolated to itself. In Eʹphra·im’s case, they have hired lovers.

¹⁰ Also, although they keep hiring [them] among the nations, I shall now collect them together; and they will be a little while in severe pains because of the burden of king [and] princes.

¹¹ “For Eʹphra·im has multiplied altars in order to sin. He has come to have altars in order to sin.

¹² I proceeded to write for him many things of my law; just like something strange they have been accounted.

¹³ As my gift sacrifices they kept sacrificing flesh, and they kept eating what Jehovah himself took no pleasure in. Now he will remember their error and hold an accounting for their sins. To Egypt they themselves proceeded to return.

¹⁴ And Israel began forgetting his Maker and building temples; and Judah, for his part, multiplied fortified cities. And I shall certainly send fire into his cities and it must devour the dwelling towers of [each] one.”