Bible Reading Made Easy

Hosea 4

  • 4:1 Hear the word of the LORD, you children of Israel: for the LORD has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land.
  • 4:2 By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood touches blood.
  • 4:3 Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwells therein shall languish, with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven; yes, the fishes of the sea also shall be taken away.
  • 4:4 Yet let no man strive, nor reprove another: for your people are as they that strive with the priest.
  • 4:5 Therefore shall you fall in the day, and the prophet also shall fall with you in the night, and I will destroy your mother.
  • 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you, that you shall be no priest to me: seeing you have forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your children.
  • 4:7 As they were increased, so they sinned against me: therefore will I change their glory into shame.
  • 4:8 They eat up the sin of my people, and they set their heart on their iniquity.
  • 4:9 And there shall be, like people, like priest: and I will punish them for their ways, and reward them their doings.
  • 4:10 For they shall eat, and not have enough: they shall commit prostitution, and shall not increase: because they have left off to take heed to the LORD.
  • 4:11 Prostitution and wine and new wine take away the heart.
  • 4:12 My people ask counsel at their stocks, and their staff declares to them: for the spirit of prostitutions has caused them to err, and they have gone a whoring from under their God.
  • 4:13 They sacrifice on the tops of the mountains, and burn incense on the hills, under oaks and poplars and elms, because the shadow thereof is good: therefore your daughters shall commit prostitution, and your spouses shall commit adultery.
  • 4:14 I will not punish your daughters when they commit prostitution, nor your spouses when they commit adultery: for themselves are separated with whores, and they sacrifice with harlots: therefore the people that does not understand shall fall.
  • 4:15 Though you, Israel, play the harlot, yet let not Judah offend; and come not you to Gilgal, neither go you up to Bethaven, nor swear, The LORD lives.
  • 4:16 For Israel slides back as a backsliding heifer: now the LORD will feed them as a lamb in a large place.
  • 4:17 Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone.
  • 4:18 Their drink is sour: they have committed prostitution continually: her rulers with shame do love, Give you.
  • 4:19 The wind has bound her up in her wings, and they shall be ashamed because of their sacrifices.

Hosea 3

  • 3:1 Then said the LORD to me, Go yet, love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress, according to the love of the LORD toward the children of Israel, who look to other gods, and love flagons of wine.
  • 3:2 So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and for an homer of barley, and an half homer of barley:
  • 3:3 And I said to her, You shall abide for me many days; you shall not play the harlot, and you shall not be for another man: so will I also be for you.
  • 3:4 For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim:
  • 3:5 Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the LORD their God, and David their king; and shall fear the LORD and his goodness in the latter days.

Hosea 2

  • 2:1 Say you to your brothers, Ammi; and to your sisters, Ruhamah.
  • 2:2 Plead with your mother, plead: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore put away her prostitutions out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts;
  • 2:3 Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and slay her with thirst.
  • 2:4 And I will not have mercy on her children; for they be the children of prostitutions.
  • 2:5 For their mother has played the harlot: she that conceived them has done shamefully: for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.
  • 2:6 Therefore, behold, I will hedge up your way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths.
  • 2:7 And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them: then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now.
  • 2:8 For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal.
  • 2:9 Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in the time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof, and will recover my wool and my flax given to cover her nakedness.
  • 2:10 And now will I discover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and none shall deliver her out of my hand.
  • 2:11 I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts.
  • 2:12 And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, whereof she has said, These are my rewards that my lovers have given me: and I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them.
  • 2:13 And I will visit on her the days of Baalim, wherein she burned incense to them, and she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgot me, said the LORD.
  • 2:14 Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably to her.
  • 2:15 And I will give her her vineyards from there, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.
  • 2:16 And it shall be at that day, said the LORD, that you shall call me Ishi; and shall call me no more Baali.
  • 2:17 For I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth, and they shall no more be remembered by their name.
  • 2:18 And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground: and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely.
  • 2:19 And I will betroth you to me for ever; yes, I will betroth you to me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in loving kindness, and in mercies.
  • 2:20 I will even betroth you to me in faithfulness: and you shall know the LORD.
  • 2:21 And it shall come to pass in that day, I will hear, said the LORD, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth;
  • 2:22 And the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they shall hear Jezreel.
  • 2:23 And I will sow her to me in the earth; and I will have mercy on her that had not obtained mercy; and I will say to them which were not my people, You are my people; and they shall say, You are my God.

Hosea 1

  • 1:1 The word of the LORD that came to Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.
  • 1:2 The beginning of the word of the LORD by Hosea. And the LORD said to Hosea, Go, take to you a wife of prostitutions and children of prostitutions: for the land has committed great prostitution, departing from the LORD.
  • 1:3 So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; which conceived, and bore him a son.
  • 1:4 And the LORD said to him, Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel on the house of Jehu, and will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel.
  • 1:5 And it shall come to pass at that day, that I will break the bow of Israel, in the valley of Jezreel.
  • 1:6 And she conceived again, and bore a daughter. And God said to him, Call her name Loruhamah: for I will no more have mercy on the house of Israel; but I will utterly take them away.
  • 1:7 But I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and will save them by the LORD their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.
  • 1:8 Now when she had weaned Loruhamah, she conceived, and bore a son.
  • 1:9 Then said God, Call his name Loammi: for you are not my people, and I will not be your God.
  • 1:10 Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said to them, You are not my people, there it shall be said to them, You are the sons of the living God.
  • 1:11 Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered together, and appoint themselves one head, and they shall come up out of the land: for great shall be the day of Jezreel.