Hosea 4:5-15

5You are always falling over. In the day and in the night, you trip and you fall. The false prophets are the same as you. So I will destroy Israel, your mother.

6The people do not know me. Because of that, they will come to an end. You refuse to respect my authority, so I will remove you as my priests. You refuse to obey the law of your God, so I will refuse to accept your children as my priests.

7The more priests that there are among you, the more sins they do against me. They should have received honour as priests, but I will make them ashamed.

8They get food to eat when the people bring their sin offerings to them. So the priests are happy when the people do bad things, because they get more food to eat.

9The people do whatever the priests do. I will punish them all for the bad things that they do. I will give them what their sins deserve.

10They will eat, but they will still be hungry. They will have sex with prostitutes, but they will still have no children. This will happen because they have turned away from the Lord.

11Instead, they worship other gods. My people cannot think properly because they drink too much old wine and new wine.

12They ask wooden idols to tell them what to do! A stick tells them what will happen in the future! They have turned away from me and they have lost their way. They have not been faithful to me, their God, as a prostitute is not faithful to her husband.

13They offer sacrifices on the tops of the mountains. They burn offerings on the hills. They do this under the oak trees, the poplar trees and the other big trees. They enjoy the shade under those trees. As a result, your daughters serve the false gods as prostitutes. Your sons' wives are also guilty of adultery.

14But I will not punish them for those sins, because the men are just as guilty! They sleep with prostitutes. They join with prostitutes to offer sacrifices to the false gods. All of this shows that people who cannot think properly destroy themselves.’

15You people of Israel are not faithful to the Lord. But do not let the people of Judah become guilty of the same sins. Do not travel to Gilgal to worship! Do not go to Beth Aven! Do not say, ‘I promise this is true, as surely as the Lord lives’.