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Hosea 8 - Good News Bible bible

Hosea 8

¹The LORD says, "Sound the alarm! Enemies are swooping down on my land like eagles! My people have broken the covenant I made with them and have rebelled against my teaching.

²Even though they call me their God and claim that they are my people and that they know me,

³they have rejected what is good. Because of this their enemies will pursue them.

⁴"My people chose kings, but they did it on their own. They appointed leaders, but without my approval. They took their silver and gold and made idols---for their own destruction.

⁵I hate the gold bull worshiped by the people of the city of Samaria. I am furious with them. How long will it be before they give up their idolatry?

⁶An Israelite craftsman made the idol, and it is not a god at all! The gold bull worshiped in Samaria will be smashed to pieces!

⁷When they sow the wind, they will reap a storm! A field of grain that doesn't ripen can never produce any bread. But even if it did, foreigners would eat it up.

⁸Israel has become like any other nation and is as useless as a broken pot.

⁹Stubborn as wild donkeys, the people of Israel go their own way. They have gone off to seek help from Assyria and have paid other nations to protect them.

¹⁰But now I am going to gather them together and punish them. Soon they will writhe in pain when the emperor of Assyria oppresses them.

¹¹"The more altars the people of Israel build for removing sin, the more places they have for sinning!

¹²I write down countless teachings for the people, but they reject them as strange and foreign.

¹³They offer sacrifices to me and eat the meat of the sacrifices. But I, the LORD, am not pleased with them, and now I will remember their sin and punish them for it; I will send them back to Egypt!

¹⁴"The people of Israel have built palaces, but they have forgotten their own Maker. The people of Judah have built fortified cities. But I will send fire that will burn down their palaces and their cities."