Hosea 6:4

Hosea 6:4 in other versions

• King James Version (KJV)O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee? for your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away.
• New International Version (NIV)“What can I do with you, Ephraim? What can I do with you, Judah? Your love is like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears.
• English Standard Version (ESV)What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes early away.
• New King James Version (NKJV)“O Ephraim, what shall I do to you? O Judah, what shall I do to you? For your faithfulness is like a morning cloud, And like the early dew it goes away.

Context of Hosea 6:4

2He will soon make us strong again. After three days, we will have new lives. Then we can live together with him. 3We should respect the Lord's authority. We must try to know him better. Then he will certainly come to rescue us. He will come to us as surely as the sun appears each morning. He will help us as surely as the rain comes in spring and it makes the ground wet for plants to grow.’ ‘People of Ephraim and Judah, can I forgive you so easily? Your love for me soon disappears. It goes away as quickly as mist or dew in the morning. 5I sent my prophets to warn you. They gave you my messages that I would punish you. Now that punishment will certainly happen to you! I will suddenly come to judge you, like the sun that rises at dawn. 6It is faithful love that makes me happy. That would be better than your sacrifices to me. You should know me as your God. That would be better than your burnt offerings.

Hosea 6:4 word by word

מָ֤ה אֶֽעֱשֶׂה־לְּךָ֙ אֶפְרַ֔יִם מָ֥ה אֶעֱשֶׂה־לְּךָ֖ יְהוּדָ֑ה וְחַסְדְּכֶם֙ כַּֽעֲנַן־בֹּ֔קֶר וְכַטַּ֖ל מַשְׁכִּ֥ים הֹלֵֽךְ׃Read the interlinear

Words taken from the KJV.

• O Ephraimאֶפְרַ֫יִם'ephrayim · EphraimH669
• what shall I doעָשָׂה‛âώâh · to make: doH6213
• unto thee? O Judahיְהוּדָהyehûdâh · JudahH3063
• unto thee? for your goodnessחֶ֫סֶדchêsêd · kindnessH2617
• as a morningבֹּ֫קֶרbôqer · morningH1242
• cloudעָנָן‛ânân · cloudH6051
• and as the earlyשָׁכַםshâkam · to riseH7925
• dewטַלţal · dewH2919
• it goeth awayהָלַךְhâlak · to go: wentH1980

Cross-references for Hosea 6:4

• Hosea 11:8Israel, I cannot leave you alone. I cannot let you belong to someone else. I cannot destroy you, as I did to Admah and Zeboiim. I now realize that I love you too much. I could never destroy you completely.
• Isaiah 5:3So now, listen to me, you people who live in Jerusalem and in Judah. You must be the judge! Who did what was right? Was it me or my vineyard? You decide!
• Jeremiah 3:19I thought this: “I want you people of Israel to be my children. That would make me very happy. I want to give you a good land as your home. It is a more beautiful land than any other nation enjoys.” I thought that you would call me “Father”. I thought that you would always be faithful to me.
• Jeremiah 5:7The Lord said, ‘Jerusalem, I have to punish you. Your people have turned away from me. They have served gods that are not true gods. I gave them everything that they needed. But they left me, like a wife who leaves her husband. The men hurry to the houses of prostitutes.
• Jeremiah 9:7So the Lord Almighty says this: ‘Listen! I will test my people, like a man uses fire to make metal become pure. I must punish them like this because they are so wicked. There is nothing else that I can do!
• Luke 13:7So he said to his gardener, “Look, for three years, I have come to look for fruit on this tree. But I have never found any. So cut the tree down! I do not think that it should be here. It is wasting the ground.”
• Luke 19:41When Jesus got near to the city, he looked at it. He cried because he felt very sorry for the people in it.
• Judges 2:18Every time that the Lord chose a judge to lead them, the Lord helped the leader to rescue them from their enemies. While the leader was still alive, the Lord was kind to them. When the Israelites called out to the Lord for help, he was sorry for them. He saw the cruel things that their enemies were doing to give them pain.
• Psalms 78:34When God killed some of them, the other people turned to God. They were sorry and they prayed to him.
• Psalms 106:12Then God's people believed his promises. They sang songs to praise him.
• Jeremiah 3:10Still Judah has not turned back to me. She wants me to think that she has, but she has not. Like her sister, Israel, she has not been faithful.’ That is what the Lord says.
• Jeremiah 34:15But now, you yourselves agreed to do what pleases me. You decided to obey me. You made a serious agreement with me in the temple which is my home. You let your slaves go free.
• Matthew 13:21But they are like plants that have not grown down well into the soil. So they only believe for a short time. They may have problems. Or other people may do bad things to them, because they obey God's message. When that happens, these people soon stop believing.
• 2 Peter 2:20People like that learned about our Lord Jesus Christ, who saves us. As a result, they had stopped doing the bad things that belong to this world. They had become free from the power of those things. But now they have started to do those bad things again. Those things have power over them and they cannot stop doing them. So now, these false teachers are worse than they were at the beginning, before they believed in the Lord Jesus.
• Hosea 13:3So those people will soon disappear! They will quickly disappear like mist or dew in the morning. They will be like chaff that the wind blows away from a threshing floor. They will be like smoke that disappears out of an open window.

Commentaries on Hosea 6:4

• Adam Clarke Bible Commentary · v. 4O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? - This is the answer of the Lord to the above pious resolutions; sincere while they lasted, but frequently forgotten, because the people were fickle. Their goodness (for goodness it was while it endured) was like the morning cloud that fadeth away before the rising sun, or like the early dew which is speedily evaporated by heat. Ephraim and Judah had too much goodness in them to admit of their total rejection, and too…Read the comment
• Barnes’ Notes on the Bible · v. 4O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? - It is common with the prophets, first to set forth the fullness of the riches of God‘s mercies in Christ, and then to turn to their own generation, and upbraid them for the sins which withheld the mercies of God from “them,” and were hurrying them to their destruction. In like way Isaiah, Romans 13:10, Romans 13:8. And, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and every one that loveth is born of God…Read the comment
• Matthew Henry Concise Commentary · v. 4-11Verses 4-11 Sometimes Israel and Judah seemed disposed to repent under their sufferings, but their goodness vanished like the empty morning cloud, and the early dew, and they were as vile as ever. Therefore the Lord sent awful messages by the prophets. The word of God will be the death either of the sin or of the sinner. God desired mercy rather than sacrifice, and that knowledge of him which produces holy fear and love. This exposes the folly of those…Read the comment
• Tyndale Open Study Notes · v. 4Israel's response was not enough. God lamented that their love vanished like morning mist and dew.Read the comment
• Jamieson–Fausset–Brown Commentary · v. 44. what shall I do unto thee--to bring thee back to piety. What more could be done that I have not done, both in mercies and chastenings (Is 5:4)? At this verse a new discourse begins, resuming the threats (Ho 5:14). See opening remarks on this chapter. goodness--godliness. morning cloud--soon dispersed by the sun (Ho 13:3). There is a tacit contrast here to the promise of God's grace to Israel hereafter, in Ho 6:3. His going forth is "as the morning,"…Read the comment

Topics related to Hosea 6:4

• Backsliders
• Character
• Cloud
• Dew
• Ephraim
• Hypocrisy
• Instability
• Lukewarmness
• Meteorology and Celestial Phenomena

In the dictionaries

• Ephraim
• Judah
• Ephraim, Ephraimite
• Judah, kingdom of Judah
• Judea, Judah
• Cloud
• Consent
• Follow
• Calf, Golden
• Dew

Commentaries on Hosea 6

• Adam Clarke Bible Commentary
• Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
• Matthew Henry Concise Commentary
• Tyndale Open Study Notes
• Jamieson–Fausset–Brown Commentary
• Rashi on Tanakh
• Calvin’s Commentaries
• Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
• John Wesley’s Notes
• Darby Translation Notes
• Geneva Bible Translation Notes
• Kingcomments
• Matthew Henry’s Complete Commentary
• Matthew Henry’s Modern English Commentary
• Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary
• EGW Writings