Books of The Bible / Book of Hosea
1 Come, let us return to Yahweh. He has rent us and he will heal us; he has struck us and he will bind up our wounds;
2 after two days he will revive us, on the third day he will raise us up and we shall live in his presence.
3 Let us know, let us strive to know Yahweh; that he will come is as certain as the dawn. He will come to us like a shower, like the rain of springtime to the earth.
4 What am I to do with you, Ephraim? What am I to do with you, Judah? For your love is like morning mist, like the dew that quickly disappears.
5 This is why I have hacked them to pieces by means of the prophets, why I have killed them with words from my mouth, why my sentence will blaze forth like the dawn-
6 for faithful love is what pleases me, not sacrifice; knowledge of God, not burnt offerings.
7 But they have broken the covenant at Adam, there they have betrayed me.
8 Gilead is a city of evil-doers, full of bloody footprints.
9 Like so many robbers in ambush, a gang of priests commits murder on the road to Shechem- what infamous behaviour!
10 At Bethel I have seen a horrible thing; there Ephraim plays the whore, Israel is befouled.
11 For you too, Judah, a harvest is in store, when I restore my people’s fortunes.
Written by Robert Patterson, M.A.
Robert holds a Master's degree in Religious Studies with a focus on Catholic Church History. He has spent over two decades researching the lives of the Popes and the history of the Papacy. PopeHistory.com has been a trusted resource for papal information since 2001.
