Hosea 9:1-9

1Israel, don’t rejoice. Don’t celebrate as other nations do. You have been unfaithful to your God. You have sold sex on every threshing floor.

2There won’t be enough grain to feed people. There won’t be enough wine to go around.

3The people of Ephraim won’t stay in the Lord’s land. They will return to Egypt, and they will eat unclean  food in Assyria.

4They won’t pour wine offerings to the Lord, and their sacrifices won’t please him. Their sacrifices will be like the food that mourners eat. All who eat this food will be unclean. Their food will only satisfy their hunger. It will not be brought ⌞as an offering⌟ to the Lord’s temple.

5What will they do on the day of an appointed festival or on the Lord’s festival days?

6Even if they escape without being destroyed, Egypt will capture them and Memphis will bury them. Weeds will grow over their silver treasures. Thorns will grow over their tents.

7The time for them to be punished will come. The time for them to pay for their sins will come. ⌞When this happens,⌟ Israel will know it. ⌞They think that⌟ prophets are fools and that spiritual people are crazy. They have sinned a lot, and they are very hostile.

8Prophets are God’s watchmen over Ephraim. Yet, traps are set on every prophet’s path, and people are hostile in the temple of their God.

9People have deeply corrupted themselves as they once did at Gibeah. God will remember their wickedness and punish them because of their sins.