Hosea 8

1 To your mouth [set] the shofar, as an eagle over the house of YHWH, because they have transgressed My covenant, and against My law they have rebelled.

2 To Me they cry, “O My God, Israel, we know You.”

3 Israel has rejected the good; an enemy will pursue him.

4 They set up kings, and not from Me; they made princes, and not ones I knew. With their silver and gold they made for themselves idols, that it might be cut off.

5 He has rejected your calf, O Samaria; My anger burns against them. Until when will they not be capable of innocence?

6 For it [is] from Israel. A workman made it, and it [is] not God. Surely the calf of Samaria will be broken to pieces.

7 For the wind they sow and they shall reap the whirlwind. The stalk [is] not unto it, a shoot not yielding flour; even if it should produce, strangers would swallow it up!

8 Israel is swallowed up; now they are among the Gentiles, like a vessel with no delight in it.

9 For they have gone up to Assyria; a wild donkey isolated by himself; Ephraim, they have hired lovers.

10 Even though they have hired among the nations, I will now gather them. And they will begin to diminish from the burden of the king of princes.

11 Because Ephraim has multiplied altars for sin, they have become unto him altars for sinning.

12 Were I to write for him the myriad [things] of My law, they would be regarded as a strange thing.

13 The sacrifices of My gifts they sacrifice, [and] the flesh they eat—YHWH does not accept them. Now He has in mind their iniquity, and He will attend to their sins: They will return to Egypt.

14 And Israel has forgotten his Maker and has built palaces, and Judah has multiplied fortified cities; and I will send fire upon his cities, and it will devour his palaces.