Hosea 8

1Put the ram’s horn to your lips! An enemy swoops like an eagle over the house of the LORD, because they have broken my covenant and rebelled against my instruction. 2They cry out to me, “My God, we, Israel, know you!” 3Israel has rejected what is good; an enemy will chase him down. 4They set up kings, but not by me; they appointed officials without my approval. With their silver and gold they made themselves idols, to their own destruction. 5Your calf is rejected, Samaria! My anger burns against them. How long will they be unable to become clean? 6This thing too comes from Israel: a craftsman made it; it is not God. The calf of Samaria will be smashed to splinters. 7They sow the wind, and they will reap the whirlwind. The standing grain has no head; it will make no flour. Even if it did, foreigners would swallow it up. 8Israel has been swallowed up; now they are among the nations like a jar that no one wants. 9They have gone up to Assyria, like a wild donkey roaming on its own. Ephraim has paid for lovers. 10Even though they hire lovers among the nations, I will now gather them together, and soon they will begin to suffer under the burden of the king of princes. 11Ephraim has built many altars for sin, but they have become altars for sinning. 12Though I write down for him the many things of my instruction, they are treated as something foreign. 13They offer sacrifices as gifts to me and eat the meat, but the LORD does not accept them. Now he will remember their guilt and punish their sins; they will go back to Egypt. 14Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces, and Judah has built many fortified towns. But I will send fire on his towns, and it will burn up their fortresses.