Listen you ones who stand between the people and God and you kings and workers at the king’s house, you made a trap to hurt people, but I told you how to do the right thing.

 

 

You turn away from the Lord and do not set your steps in His path. You don’t know Him.

 

 

 

Your pride is puffed up before His face and you will fall in the badness you do.

Then when I spanked you, says the Lord, you went to another bad one instead of turning back to the Lord who made You and holds you up.

Now the Lord will be like a lion and tear you with his paw and go away and no one will help you, until you go back to the Lord and say sorry and tell Him the bad stuff you did.

 

 

 

When the trouble comes, they will hurry back quick to Me, said the Lord.

 

Come on, let’s go back to the Lord because He has hurt, but He will make it all better. He broke, but He will fix it.

 

 

After two days he will raise us up and on the third day and we will live happy, good lives where He sees it.

 

 

We will know if we follow the Lord to know it.

He goes out like the beautiful morning spreads across the sky, like good rain falling down on the ground to make the flowers grow pretty.

 

O My people, what can I do? Your goodness floats away the a little cloud. It dries up like the morning dew on the grass.

 

 

 

I want you to do good from the start instead of always saying, ‘sorry.’

 

 

I want to love you and for you to love me instead of all this other stuff.

 

 

I want you to learn about what I am like, instead of offering all these sacrifices on the altar.

 

 

 

But you break the promise and do bad stuff from the bad ones and hurt lots of people.

 

 

 

You sneak around to steal things from people. I will pay you back when I save My people.

The Lord said to Hosea, I wanted to make it all better for My people but then saw lots more bad stuff, lying and stealing, whole groups of people running around doing it.

 

They don’t think in their hearts that I remember all their badness. They do it all right in front of My face.

 

 

And the king is happy at all the badness and the princes love their lies and make the king wobble all around with lots of wine.

 

Their badness is like an oven getting hotter and hotter until it burns everything up.

 

Not one of them calls out to Me, says the Lord God. So people from the other countries eat up all their stuff and they don’t even know it.

 

They are so puffed up in themselves that they don’t turn back to the Lord who made them and don’t want Him.

 

They are like a silly dove that has no heart. So I will spread out My net and bring them down like the birds of the heavens.

 

 

 

I will spank them. Big trouble comes for them because I bought them back for Myself but they lie about Me.

 

 

I tried to hold them on the right path, but they just think up bad stuff about Me. They do not come back to the Most High.

Lift the trumpet up to your mouth and blow the warning sound because the bad ones will come swooping down on My people like an eagle.

 

 

Then they will call out to me when the enemy is chasing them.

 

 

They made kings for themselves, not from Me and princes not from Me. They made gold and silver statues to bow down to and it will throw them away.

 

How long will they keep wanting to be bad? They plant seeds to the wind and will get back the whirlwind, not good things to grow and eat.

They are swallowed up because they went to the other countries to get what they need instead of to Me, says the Lord God who made them.

 

 

 

I wrote down for them all My good stuff but they only want bad.

 

 

 

I can’t like them. but I will spank them, because they forgot their Maker.

 

 

Fire will eat up all their beautiful palaces.