Reading for November 1st

Hosea 8-10 (Listen)

Israel Will Reap the Whirlwind
Set the trumpet to your lips!

One like a vulture is over the house of the Lord,

because they have transgressed my covenant

and rebelled against my law.

To me they cry,

“My God, we—Israel—know you.”

Israel has spurned the good;

the enemy shall pursue him.

They made kings, but not through me.

They set up princes, but I knew it not.

With their silver and gold they made idols

for their own destruction.

I have spurned your calf, O Samaria.

My anger burns against them.

How long will they be incapable of innocence?

For it is from Israel;

a craftsman made it;

it is not God.

The calf of Samaria

shall be broken to pieces.

For they sow the wind,

and they shall reap the whirlwind.

The standing grain has no heads;

it shall yield no flour;

if it were to yield,

strangers would devour it.

Israel is swallowed up;

already they are among the nations

as a useless vessel.

For they have gone up to Assyria,

a wild donkey wandering alone;

Ephraim has hired lovers.

Though they hire allies among the nations,

I will soon gather them up.

And the king and princes shall soon writhe

because of the tribute.

Because Ephraim has multiplied altars for sinning,

they have become to him altars for sinning.

Were I to write for him my laws by the ten thousands,

they would be regarded as a strange thing.

As for my sacrificial offerings,

they sacrifice meat and eat it,

but the Lord does not accept them.

Now he will remember their iniquity

and punish their sins;

they shall return to Egypt.

For Israel has forgotten his Maker

and built palaces,

and Judah has multiplied fortified cities;

so I will send a fire upon his cities,

and it shall devour her strongholds.

The Lord Will Punish Israel
Rejoice not, O Israel!

Exult not like the peoples;

for you have played the whore, forsaking your God.

You have loved a prostitute's wages

on all threshing floors.

Threshing floor and wine vat shall not feed them,

and the new wine shall fail them.

They shall not remain in the land of the Lord,

but Ephraim shall return to Egypt,

and they shall eat unclean food in Assyria.

They shall not pour drink offerings of wine to the Lord,

and their sacrifices shall not please him.

It shall be like mourners' bread to them;

all who eat of it shall be defiled;

for their bread shall be for their hunger only;

it shall not come to the house of the Lord.

What will you do on the day of the appointed festival,

and on the day of the feast of the Lord?

For behold, they are going away from destruction;

but Egypt shall gather them;

Memphis shall bury them.

Nettles shall possess their precious things of silver;

thorns shall be in their tents.

The days of punishment have come;

the days of recompense have come;

Israel shall know it.

The prophet is a fool;

the man of the spirit is mad,

because of your great iniquity

and great hatred.

The prophet is the watchman of Ephraim with my God;

yet a fowler's snare is on all his ways,

and hatred in the house of his God.

They have deeply corrupted themselves

as in the days of Gibeah:

he will remember their iniquity;

he will punish their sins.

Like grapes in the wilderness,

I found Israel.

Like the first fruit on the fig tree

in its first season,

I saw your fathers.

But they came to Baal-peor

and consecrated themselves to the thing of shame,

and became detestable like the thing they loved.

Ephraim's glory shall fly away like a bird—

no birth, no pregnancy, no conception!

Even if they bring up children,

I will bereave them till none is left.

Woe to them

when I depart from them!

Ephraim, as I have seen, was like a young palm planted in a meadow;

but Ephraim must lead his children out to slaughter.

Give them, O Lord—

what will you give?

Give them a miscarrying womb

and dry breasts.

Every evil of theirs is in Gilgal;

there I began to hate them.

Because of the wickedness of their deeds

I will drive them out of my house.

I will love them no more;

all their princes are rebels.

Ephraim is stricken;

their root is dried up;

they shall bear no fruit.

Even though they give birth,

I will put their beloved children to death.

My God will reject them

because they have not listened to him;

they shall be wanderers among the nations.

Israel is a luxuriant vine

that yields its fruit.

The more his fruit increased,

the more altars he built;

as his country improved,

he improved his pillars.

Their heart is false;

now they must bear their guilt.

The Lord will break down their altars

and destroy their pillars.

For now they will say:

“We have no king,

for we do not fear the Lord;

and a king—what could he do for us?”

They utter mere words;

with empty oaths they make covenants;

so judgment springs up like poisonous weeds

in the furrows of the field.

The inhabitants of Samaria tremble

for the calf of Beth-aven.

Its people mourn for it, and so do its idolatrous priests—

those who rejoiced over it and over its glory—

for it has departed from them.

The thing itself shall be carried to Assyria

as tribute to the great king.

Ephraim shall be put to shame,

and Israel shall be ashamed of his idol.

Samaria's king shall perish

like a twig on the face of the waters.

The high places of Aven, the sin of Israel,

shall be destroyed.

Thorn and thistle shall grow up

on their altars,

and they shall say to the mountains, “Cover us,”

and to the hills, “Fall on us.”

From the days of Gibeah, you have sinned, O Israel;

there they have continued.

Shall not the war against the unjust overtake them in Gibeah?

When I please, I will discipline them,

and nations shall be gathered against them

when they are bound up for their double iniquity.

Ephraim was a trained calf

that loved to thresh,

and I spared her fair neck;

but I will put Ephraim to the yoke;

Judah must plow;

Jacob must harrow for himself.

Sow for yourselves righteousness;

reap steadfast love;

break up your fallow ground,

for it is the time to seek the Lord,

that he may come and rain righteousness upon you.

You have plowed iniquity;

you have reaped injustice;

you have eaten the fruit of lies.

Because you have trusted in your own way

and in the multitude of your warriors,

therefore the tumult of war shall arise among your people,

and all your fortresses shall be destroyed,

as Shalman destroyed Beth-arbel on the day of battle;

mothers were dashed in pieces with their children.

Thus it shall be done to you, O Bethel,

because of your great evil.

At dawn the king of Israel

shall be utterly cut off.