Hosea 4: Psalm 23 inverted – God’s charges against us.

1: Hear The Word of Yehowah, sons of Israel: a dispute (legal charge, Riv) from Yehovah against the residents of The Land: Because there is no truth and no loving kindness and no knowledge of God in land,

2: Swearing and deceiving and murdering and stealing and prostituting, breaking all restraint with blood struck upon blood.

3: Then The Land mourns over (this) and languished. All dwellers there with livestock of the field and birds of heavens and also fish of waters are gathered away.

4: Now letting a man not dispute (Riv) and making judgement of a man.

(But) Your people are like those who are provoking dispute (Riv) with a priest.

5: And (in) The Day you staggered, (in) the night the prophet also staggered with you.

I exterminated (Wedamithi from damn-a) your mother.

6: Ammi (my-people) are exterminated (nidmu from damn-a). The Knowledge dwindled because you rejected (mastha) The Knowledge.

And I reject you (wemaska) from being priest to me.

And you forget (Thishka) your God’s instruction manual (Torah)

– I forget (Eshka) your children – I too!

7: As they excelled, so they sinned against me.

I will change their glory to dishonour.

8: Ammi (my-people) devour sin. Their souls carry guilt –

9: and it was that the priest was like the people.

And so I attended to them: I caused their ways and their deeds to return to them.

10: For they ate but are not sated, caused prostitution but did not prosper because they forsook obedience to Yehowah.

11: Prostitution and wine (and new wine) take the heart.

12: Ammi (my people) , asking their rod and making their staff to inform them about a spirit of prostitutes causing them to err and prostituting them against their God.

13: They slaughter sacrifice on the mountain tops and the hills, they burn sacrifice under the oaks and poplars and terebinth trees because their shade is good.

And then your daughters prostitute and your daughters-in -law commit adultery.

14: I will not pay attention (reckon) to your daughters when they prostitute (thinayna),

not to your daughters-in -law when they commit adultery (thinafna).  

For they also disperse prostitutes and offer slaughter sacrifice with temple prostitutes.

And people do not discern what is thrown down:

15: Israel (God-strife) – as if prostituting is not offending.

Judah (God-praise)– as if going down to stone circles (Gilgal), coming up to house of wickedness (Beth Aven), And not swearing, “Yehowah lives”

16: is like a stubbornly stubborn heifer.

 

Israel – Yehowah is pasturing you like a lamb in open countryside

17: bewitched by idols.

 

Ephraim (bandaged) – let him lie down peacefully!

18: He rebelled. Their liquor – prostituted and prostituted, they loved and loved, their defence dishonour!

19: They tied up the Spirit with her wings.

They shamed with their slaughter-sacrifices.

Prayer: O Lord never let us be unshepherded for we will eat and not be sated. The waters will be gathered away. We will be bewitched by idols in the pastureland – our souls prostituted, our tables unattended, Your knowledge rejected and our rod and staff causing us to err. There will no more be goodness and mercy on the land. O Lord we pray for us to be delivered from the judgement in this Your case against us even though You judge us rightly. Have mercy upon us and may our hearts turn back to live for You and You alone.