Hosea 13

¹ When Ephraim spoke, all trembled, so great was he in Israel, but through Baal he brought guilt on himself and perished.

² And now they add sin to sin, they smelt images from their silver, idols of their own manufacture, smith’s work, all of it. ‘Sacrifice to them’ they say. Men blow kisses to calves!

³ Therefore they will be like morning mist, like the dew that quickly disappears, like the chaff whirled from the threshing-floor, like smoke escaping through the window.

⁴ Yet I am Yahweh, your God since the days in the land of Egypt; you know no God but me, there is no other saviour.

⁵ I pastured you in the wilderness; in the land of drought

⁶ I pastured them, and they were satisfied; once satisfied, their hearts grew proud, and so they came to forget me.

⁷ Very well, I will be a lion to them, a leopard lurking by the way;

⁸ like a bear robbed of her cubs I will pounce on them, and tear the flesh round their hearts; the dogs shall eat their flesh, the wild beasts tear them to pieces.

⁹ I mean to destroy you, Israel; who can come to your help?

¹⁰ Your king, where is he now, to save you[*a], where are your leaders to champion you? Those of whom you used to say, ‘Give me a king and leaders’.

¹¹ In my anger I gave you a king and in my wrath I take him away.

¹² The iniquity of Ephraim is carefully hoarded, his sin is safely stored away.

¹³ Pangs as of childbirth overtake him, and a stupid child it is, its time is up but it does not leave the womb.

¹⁴ And am I to save them from the power of Sheol? Am I to rescue them from Death? Where is your plague, Death? Where are your scourges, Sheol? I have no eyes for pity.

¹⁵ Ephraim may flourish among the reeds, but the wind from the East will come, the breath of Yahweh will rise from the desert to dry his water-sources, to parch his springs, to strip his land of all its treasures.