Hosea 13
About HoseaWritten by AI
Hosea is the first of the twelve shorter prophets, sometimes called the Minor Prophets because the books are short, not because they matter less. Hosea preached in the northern kingdom of Israel in the 700s BC, in its last decades before Assyria swept it away. Kings came and went quickly, and the people mixed the worship of the LORD with the worship of Baal.
The book's picture is a marriage. God tells Hosea to marry Gomer, who will be unfaithful, and Hosea's heartbreak becomes a living sermon about Israel turning from God. Readers have long asked whether this was a literal marriage or a story told to make the point; most take it as real, and either way the pain is real.
Watch how quickly the book swings between judgment and tenderness. God is wounded, not merely angry, and He keeps coming back. The last word is an invitation to return and a promise: “I will freely love them.”
Before you read Hosea 13Written by AI
The hardest warnings in the book come here, ending with Samaria's fall. Yet notice 13:14, where God speaks of ransoming His people from death and asks where Death's sting is. Paul echoes those words in 1 Corinthians 15 when he celebrates Christ's victory over the grave.
God’s Anger against Israel
When Ephraim spoke, there was trembling;
he was exalted in Israel.
But he incurred guilt through Baal,
and he died.
Now they sin more and more
and make for themselves cast images,
idols skillfully made from their silver,
all of them the work of craftsmen.
People say of them,
“They offer human sacrifice
and kiss the calves!”
Therefore they will be like the morning mist,
like the early dew that vanishes,
like chaff blown from a threshing floor,
like smoke through an open window.
Yet I am the LORD your God
ever since the land of Egypt;
you know no God but Me,
for there is no Savior besides Me.
I knew you in the wilderness,
in the land of drought.
When they had pasture,
they became satisfied;
when they were satisfied,
their hearts became proud,
and as a result they forgot Me.
So like a lion I will pounce on them;
like a leopard I will lurk by the path.
Like a bear robbed of her cubs I will attack them,
and I will tear open their chests.
There I will devour them like a lion,
like a wild beast tearing them apart.
Death and Resurrection
You are destroyed, O Israel,
because you are against Me—
against your helper.
Where is your king now
to save you in all your cities,
and the rulers to whom you said,
“Give me a king and princes”?
So in My anger I gave you a king,
and in My wrath I took him away.
The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up;
his sin is stored up.
Labor pains come upon him,
but he is an unwise son.
When the time arrives,
he fails to present himself at the opening of the womb.
I will ransom them from the power of Sheol;
I will redeem them from Death.
Where, O Death, are your plagues?
Where, O Sheol, is your sting?
Compassion is hidden from My eyes.
Judgment on Samaria
Although he flourishes among his brothers,
an east wind will come—
a wind from the LORD
rising up from the desert.
His fountain will fail,
and his spring will run dry.
The wind will plunder his treasury
of every precious article.
Samaria will bear her guilt
because she has rebelled against her God.
They will fall by the sword;
their little ones will be dashed to pieces,
and their pregnant women ripped open.