Hosea 5

1 “Hear this, priests. Pay attention, house of Israel. Listen, house of the king, because the judgment concerns you. You became a snare at the lookout and a net spread over Tabor,

2 fixed there by those hunting prey. But I am the one who corrects you.

3 I know Ephraim, and Israel is not far from me. Now Ephraim has gone deeply into whoring, and Israel is defiled.

4 Their plans do not allow them to return to their God, because a spirit of whoring is within them, and they have not known the Lord.

5 Israel’s pride will be brought low before him. Israel and Ephraim will grow weak in their wrongdoing, and Judah will grow weak with them.

6 They will go with sheep and calves to seek the Lord, but they will not find him, because he has turned away from them.

7 They abandoned the Lord and foreign children were born to them. Now blight will devour them and their portions.

8 Blow the trumpet on the hills! Sound it on the heights! Proclaim it in House of On! Benjamin is stunned.

9 Ephraim has come to ruin in the days of correction. Among Israel’s tribes I have shown what is sure.

10 Judah’s rulers became like people moving boundary stones. I will pour my fury on them like water.

11 Ephraim overpowered his opponent and trampled judgment underfoot, because he began to follow empty things.

12 So I will be confusion to Ephraim and a goad to the house of Judah.

13 Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah saw his pain. Then Ephraim went to the Assyrians and sent ambassadors to King Jarim. But he could not heal you, and your pain will not leave you.

14 For I am like a panther to Ephraim and like a lion to the house of Judah. I will seize them and leave; I will carry them off, and no one will rescue them.

15 I will go and return to my place until they are wiped out. Then they will seek my face; in their distress they will rise early to seek me, saying—”