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(The Message)

Hosea 9

1 Don't waste your life in wild orgies, Israel. Don't party away your life with the heathen. You walk away from your God at the drop of a hat and like a whore sell yourself promiscuously at every sex-and-religion party on the street. 2 All that party food won't fill you up. You'll end up hungrier than ever. 3 At this rate you'll not last long in God's land: Some of you are going to end up bankrupt in Egypt. Some of you will be disillusioned in Assyria. 4 As refugees in Egypt and Assyria, you won't have much chance to worship God - Sentenced to rations of bread and water, and your souls polluted by the spirit-dirty air. You'll be starved for God, exiled from God's own country. 5 Will you be homesick for the old Holy Days? Will you miss festival worship of God? 6 Be warned! When you escape from the frying pan of disaster, you'll fall into the fire of Egypt. Egypt will give you a fine funeral! What use will all your god-inspired silver be then as you eke out a living in a field of weeds? 7 Time's up. Doom's at the doorstep. It's payday! Did Israel bluster, "The prophet is crazy! The 'man of the Spirit' is nuts!"? Think again. Because of your great guilt, you're in big trouble. 8The prophet is looking out for Ephraim, working under God's orders. But everyone is trying to trip him up. He's hated right in God's house, of all places. 9 The people are going from bad to worse, rivaling that ancient and unspeakable crime at Gibeah. God's keeping track of their guilt. He'll make them pay for their sins. They Took to Sin Like a Pig to Filth 10 "Long ago when I came upon Israel, it was like finding grapes out in the desert. When I found your ancestors, it was like finding a fig tree bearing fruit for the first time. But when they arrived at Baal-peor, that pagan shrine, they took to sin like a pig to filth, wallowing in the mud with their newfound friends. 11 Ephraim is fickle and scattered, like a flock of blackbirds, their beauty dissipated in confusion and clamor, Frenetic and noisy, frigid and barren, and nothing to show for it - neither conception nor childbirth. 12 Even if they did give birth, I'd declare them unfit parents and take away their children! Yes indeed - a black day for them when I turn my back and walk off! 13 I see Ephraim letting his children run wild. He might just as well take them and kill them outright!" 14 Give it to them, God! But what? Give them a dried-up womb and shriveled breasts. 15 "All their evil came out into the open at the pagan shrine at Gilgal. Oh, how I hated them there! Because of their evil practices, I'll kick them off my land. I'm wasting no more love on them. Their leaders are a bunch of rebellious adolescents.16 Ephraim is hit hard - roots withered, no more fruit. Even if by some miracle they had children, the dear babies wouldn't live - I'd make sure of that!" 17 My God has washed his hands of them. They wouldn't listen. They're doomed to be wanderers, vagabonds among the godless nations.

Hosea 10

1 Israel was once a lush vine, bountiful in grapes. The more lavish the harvest, the more promiscuous the worship. The more money they got, the more they squandered on gods-in-their-own-image. 2 Their sweet smiles are sheer lies. They're guilty as sin. God will smash their worship shrines, pulverize their god-images. 3 They go around saying, "Who needs a king? We couldn't care less about God, so why bother with a king? What difference would he make?" 4 They talk big, lie through their teeth, make deals. But their high-sounding words turn out to be empty words, litter in the gutters. 5 The people of Samaria travel over to Crime City to worship the golden calf-god. They go all out, prancing and hollering, taken in by their showmen priests. They act so important around the calf-god, but are oblivious to the sham, the shame. 6 They have plans to take it to Assyria, present it as a gift to the great king. And so Ephraim makes a fool of himself, disgraces Israel with his stupid idols. 7 Samaria is history. Its king is a dead branch floating down the river. 8 Israel's favorite sin centers will all be torn down. Thistles and crabgrass will decorate their ruined altars. Then they'll say to the mountains, "Bury us!" and to the hills, "Fall on us!" 9You got your start in sin at Gibeah - that ancient, unspeakable, shocking sin - And you've been at it ever since. And Gibeah will mark the end of it in a war to end all the sinning. 10 I'll come to teach them a lesson. Nations will gang up on them, Making them learn the hard way the sum of Gibeah plus Gibeah. 11 Ephraim was a trained heifer that loved to thresh. Passing by and seeing her strong, sleek neck, I wanted to harness Ephraim, Put Ephraim to work in the fields - Judah plowing, Jacob harrowing: 12 Sow righteousness, reap love. It's time to till the ready earth, it's time to dig in with God, Until he arrives with righteousness ripe for harvest. 13 But instead you plowed wicked ways, reaped a crop of evil and ate a salad of lies. You thought you could do it all on your own, flush with weapons and manpower. 14 But the volcano of war will erupt among your people. All your defense posts will be leveled As viciously as king Shalman leveled the town of Beth-arba, When mothers and their babies were smashed on the rocks. 15 That's what's ahead for you, you so-called people of God, because of your off-the-charts evil. Some morning you're going to wake up and find Israel, king and kingdom, a blank - nothing.

Hosea 11

1 "When Israel was only a child, I loved him. I called out, 'My son!' - called him out of Egypt. 2 But when others called him, he ran off and left me. He worshiped the popular sex gods, he played at religion with toy gods. 3 Still, I stuck with him. I led Ephraim. I rescued him from human bondage, But he never acknowledged my help, 4 never admitted that I was the one pulling his wagon, That I lifted him, like a baby, to my cheek, that I bent down to feed him. 5 Now he wants to go back to Egypt or go over to Assyria - anything but return to me! 6 That's why his cities are unsafe - the murder rate skyrockets and every plan to improve things falls to pieces. 7 My people are hell-bent on leaving me. They pray to god Baal for help. He doesn't lift a finger to help them. 8 But how can I give up on you, Ephraim? How can I turn you loose, Israel? How can I leave you to be ruined like Admah, devastated like luckless Zeboim? I can't bear to even think such thoughts. My insides churn in protest. 9 And so I'm not going to act on my anger. I'm not going to destroy Ephraim. And why? Because I am God and not a human. I'm The Holy One and I'm here - in your very midst. 10"The people will end up following God. I will roar like a lion - Oh, how I'll roar! My frightened children will come running from the west. 11 Like frightened birds they'll come from Egypt, from Assyria like scared doves. I'll move them back into their homes." God's Word! Soul-Destroying Lies12 Ephraim tells lies right and left. Not a word of Israel can be trusted. Judah, meanwhile, is no better, addicted to cheap gods.