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| This is the New King James text of the passages. |
An introduction to Hosea
Hosea was a prophet to the Northern Kingdom from the day of King Jeroboam II (793-753 B.C.) down through the fall to the Assyrians in 721 B.C., found in II Kings 17 (see notes). Verse 1 shows us that he prophesied down to Hezekiah's reign (715-686 B.C. - Southern Kingdom). The metaphorical content of this prophecy revolves around Hosea's dysfunctional family. He was commanded by God to choose a wife from among prostitutes, who subsequently did not remain faithful to him after their marriage. This was to serve as an object lesson of Israel's shortcoming in their faithfulness to God. Israel's love for false gods and idols through their history is many times characterized as harlotry by the Old Testament prophets. The names of Hosea's children were also significant with regard to the actions of Israel toward God. Hosea had a tough life; besides the pressures of giving unpopular prophecies to his nation, he also had a challenging home life.
Incidentally, as the most influential among the tribes comprising the Northern Kingdom of Israel, Ephraim is often mentioned in Hosea's prophecies as characterizing all of Israel. The other prophets of the Old Testament often do the same.
How about Hosea's wife and those kids (Hosea 1)
1 ¶ The word of the LORD that came to Hosea the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.
2 When the LORD began to speak by Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea:
“Go, take yourself a wife of harlotry
And children of harlotry,
For the land has committed great harlotry
By departing from the LORD.”
3 So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.
4 Then the LORD said to him:
“Call his name Jezreel,
For in a little while
I will avenge the bloodshed of Jezreel on the house of Jehu,
And bring an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel.
5 It shall come to pass in that day
That I will break the bow of Israel in the Valley of Jezreel.”
6 ¶ And she conceived again and bore a daughter. Then God said to him:
“Call her name Lo-ruhamah,
For I will no longer have mercy on the house of Israel,
But I will utterly take them away.
7 Yet I will have mercy on the house of Judah,
Will save them by the LORD their God,
And will not save them by bow,
Nor by sword or battle,
By horses or horsemen.”
8 ¶ Now when she had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she conceived and bore a son.
9 Then God said:
“Call his name Lo-ammi,
For you are not My people,
And I will not be your God.
10 “Yet the number of the children of Israel
Shall be as the sand of the sea,
Which cannot be measured or numbered.
And it shall come to pass
In the place where it was said to them,
“You are not My people,’
There it shall be said to them,
‘You are sons of the living God.’
11 Then the children of Judah and the children of Israel
Shall be gathered together,
And appoint for themselves one head;
And they shall come up out of the land,
For great will be the day of Jezreel!
God told Hosea to take an unfaithful wife. He did so; her name was Gomer. All of the children that she bore were given names with prophetic meanings...bad prophetic meanings.
Those names all looked toward the fall of Israel to the Assyrians in 721 B.C., found in II Kings 17 (see notes). However, verse 10 looks forward to a time when Israel and Judah would again be reunited, and they would once again appoint their own leader. While it is true that they were reunited in their land when they returned in the latter part of the 6th century B.C. after the exile, they were still under the authority of other nations at that time, and did not choose their own leaders, nor were they permitted to have a king. After the fall of Israel, Judah also fell (except Jerusalem) and finally Jerusalem itself was completely overthrown in 586 B.C. (II Kings 24-25, see notes); that was after 20 years of puppet kings. Israel, as a self governing nation, did not exist until May 14, 1948 when Israel once again was constituted as an independent nation.
Verses 6 and 7 are particularly significant here in Hosea's prophecy concerning the fall of Israel to the Assyrians, but not Jerusalem at that time. Notice the prophecy of Israel's fall in verse 6, "I will no longer have mercy on the house of Israel, But I will utterly take them away." In contrast, notice the survival of Judah (at least with regard to the Assyrians) in verse 7, "Yet I will have mercy on the house of Judah, Will save them by the LORD their God, And will not save them by bow, Nor by sword or battle, By horses or horsemen." This celebrated miraculous deliverance of Jerusalem is found in II Kings 18:13-19:37, II Chronicles 32:9-22 and Isaiah 36-37 (see notes).
The object lesson applied (Hosea 2)
1 Say to your brethren, “My people,’
And to your sisters, ‘Mercy is shown.’
2 “Bring charges against your mother, bring charges;
For she is not My wife, nor am I her Husband!
Let her put away her harlotries from her sight,
And her adulteries from between her breasts;
3 Lest I strip her naked
And expose her, as in the day she was born,
And make her like a wilderness,
And set her like a dry land,
And slay her with thirst.
4 “I will not have mercy on her children,
For they are the children of harlotry.
5 For their mother has played the harlot;
She who conceived them has behaved shamefully.
For she said, “I will go after my lovers,
Who give me my bread and my water,
My wool and my linen,
My oil and my drink.’
6 “Therefore, behold,
I will hedge up your way with thorns,
And wall her in,
So that she cannot find her paths.
7 She will chase her lovers,
But not overtake them;
Yes, she will seek them, but not find them.
Then she will say,
“I will go and return to my first husband,
For then it was better for me than now.’
8 For she did not know
That I gave her grain, new wine, and oil,
And multiplied her silver and gold—
Which they prepared for Baal.
9 “Therefore I will return and take away
My grain in its time
And My new wine in its season,
And will take back My wool and My linen,
Given to cover her nakedness.
10 Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers,
And no one shall deliver her from My hand.
11 I will also cause all her mirth to cease,
Her feast days,
Her New Moons,
Her Sabbaths—
All her appointed feasts.
12 “And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees,
Of which she has said,
‘These are my wages that my lovers have given me.’
So I will make them a forest,
And the beasts of the field shall eat them.
13 I will punish her
For the days of the Baals to which she burned incense.
She decked herself with her earrings and jewelry,
And went after her lovers;
But Me she forgot,” says the LORD.
14 “Therefore, behold, I will allure her,
Will bring her into the wilderness,
And speak comfort to her.
15 I will give her her vineyards from there,
And the Valley of Achor as a door of hope;
She shall sing there,
As in the days of her youth,
As in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt.
16 “And it shall be, in that day,”
Says the LORD,
“That you will call Me “My Husband,’
And no longer call Me ‘My Master,’
17 For I will take from her mouth the names of the Baals,
And they shall be remembered by their name no more.
18 In that day I will make a covenant for them
With the beasts of the field,
With the birds of the air,
And with the creeping things of the ground.
Bow and sword of battle I will shatter from the earth,
To make them lie down safely.
19 “I will betroth you to Me forever;
Yes, I will betroth you to Me
In righteousness and justice,
In lovingkindness and mercy;
20 I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness,
And you shall know the LORD.
21 “It shall come to pass in that day
That I will answer,” says the LORD;
“I will answer the heavens,
And they shall answer the earth.
22 The earth shall answer
With grain,
With new wine,
And with oil;
They shall answer Jezreel.
23 Then I will sow her for Myself in the earth,
And I will have mercy on her who had not obtained mercy;
Then I will say to those who were not My people,
“You are My people!’
And they shall say, ‘You are my God!’ ”
Chapter 2 is based on the parallel between God’s relation to Israel and Hosea’s relation to Gomer. Hosea's family was a picture of Israel's unfaithfulness to God. They went after other gods just as an unfaithful wife goes after other men. That's the picture of of the first 13 verses of chapter 2. Hosea's prophecy makes use of the following names in verse 1 to symbolically describe Israel's relationship to God:
In verse 7 we get the sense of the analogy given here: Just as a prostitute pursues her lovers, so Israel seeks after false gods. However, God blocks her way to success, and she decides to return back to her husband (God). In verse 8 we see that God withheld the basic staples from Israel in their pursuit of false gods. As a matter of fact, Israel's futile attempt at success without God is seen down through verse 13.
However, beginning with verse 14, we see the restoration of the unfaithful wife/Israel. We get a couple more symbolic names in verse 16:
While we see a partial fulfillment in the return from exile in 535 B.C. (Ezra 1, see notes) that's not the complete fulfillment. There's coming a day when they will turn back toward their God, and God will show them favor with complete self rule. That's the yet-future millennium, also characterized in this passage as a period when even predatory animals will be tamed (verse 18), as is also described in Isaiah 11:6-9 (see notes).
Hosea takes back his harlot wife (Hosea 3)
1 Then the LORD said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by a lover and is committing adultery, just like the love of the LORD for the children of Israel, who look to other gods and love the raisin cakes of the pagans.”
2 ¶ So I bought her for myself for fifteen shekels of silver, and one and one-half homers of barley.
3 And I said to her, “You shall stay with me many days; you shall not play the harlot, nor shall you have a man—so, too, will I be toward you.”
4 ¶ For the children of Israel shall abide many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar, without ephod or teraphim.
5 Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the LORD their God and David their king. They shall fear the LORD and His goodness in the latter days.
It would appear that Gomer, Hosea's wife, was back to her old trade, if she ever actually left it. God tells Hosea to buy her back, which he does with the silver and barley of verse 2. She's to give up her relationships with the other men. The object lesson here is as follows: Just as Hosea redeemed his wife, God will redeem Israel. The fulfillment of this is in the millennium to come. Note the reference to David, their king, in verse 5, making it clearly Messianic in fulfillment. So...just as they would experience defeat and subjection in verse 4, they would once again come to their land and have their King David ruling over them (verse 5) in the yet-future kingdom age (aka millennium). Verse 5 emphasizes "David their king." Without that phrase, one might assign the fulfillment of these verses to the return of the exiles in 535 B.C. However, with David added to the prophetic mix here, this is definitely not to be fulfilled until the millennium to come.
Israel's sin of spiritual adultery (Hosea 4)
1 Hear the word of the LORD,
You children of Israel,
For the LORD brings a charge against the inhabitants of the land:
“There is no truth or mercy
Or knowledge of God in the land.
2 By swearing and lying,
Killing and stealing and committing adultery,
They break all restraint,
With bloodshed upon bloodshed.
3 Therefore the land will mourn;
And everyone who dwells there will waste away
With the beasts of the field
And the birds of the air;
Even the fish of the sea will be taken away.
4 “Now let no man contend, or rebuke another;
For your people are like those who contend with the priest.
5 Therefore you shall stumble in the day;
The prophet also shall stumble with you in the night;
And I will destroy your mother.
6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.
Because you have rejected knowledge,
I also will reject you from being priest for Me;
Because you have forgotten the law of your God,
I also will forget your children.
7 “The more they increased,
The more they sinned against Me;
I will change their glory into shame.
8 They eat up the sin of My people;
They set their heart on their iniquity.
9 And it shall be: like people, like priest.
So I will punish them for their ways,
And reward them for their deeds.
10 For they shall eat, but not have enough;
They shall commit harlotry, but not increase;
Because they have ceased obeying the LORD.
11 “Harlotry, wine, and new wine enslave the heart.
12 My people ask counsel from their wooden idols,
And their staff informs them.
For the spirit of harlotry has caused them to stray,
And they have played the harlot against their God.
13 They offer sacrifices on the mountaintops,
And burn incense on the hills,
Under oaks, poplars, and terebinths,
Because their shade is good.
Therefore your daughters commit harlotry,
And your brides commit adultery.
14 “I will not punish your daughters when they commit harlotry,
Nor your brides when they commit adultery;
For the men themselves go apart with harlots,
And offer sacrifices with a ritual harlot.
Therefore people who do not understand will be trampled.
15 “Though you, Israel, play the harlot,
Let not Judah offend.
Do not come up to Gilgal,
Nor go up to Beth Aven,
Nor swear an oath, saying, ‘As the LORD lives’—
16 “For Israel is stubborn
Like a stubborn calf;
Now the LORD will let them forage
Like a lamb in open country.
17 “Ephraim is joined to idols,
Let him alone.
18 Their drink is rebellion,
They commit harlotry continually.
Her rulers dearly love dishonor.
19 The wind has wrapped her up in its wings,
And they shall be ashamed because of their sacrifices.
In this chapter, the sin of Israel's embracing false gods is once again the theme. Verse 1 sets the tone for the chapter, "Hear the word of the LORD, You children of Israel, For the LORD brings a charge against the inhabitants of the land: 'There is no truth or mercy Or knowledge of God in the land.'" Again, let me remind you, from their first king, Jeroboam, they never served God. He immediately erected two calves for worship, and that became their form of basic worship in the Northern Kingdom. When they wandered away from the base religion to Baal, Molech and others, they would from time to time come back to their basic worship, the two calves. They were unfaithful to the one true God from their very beginning. Even their two-calf priests are given dishonorable mention in verses 4-11. Their culpability is identified here.
We see in verses 12-14 that the people of Israel were worshiping and looking for leadership from false gods rather than from their own true God. Judah is mentioned in verse 15. They had their problems of going after other gods as well, but their base religion was the worship of the one true God. When they went back to basics, that's where they went. The prophets often identify the deviation from serving Jehovah as spiritual harlotry. Ephraim is mentioned in verse 17 as the most influential of the tribes comprising the Northern Kingdom.
Let's face it; they've been bad (Hosea 5)
1 “Hear this, O priests!
Take heed, O house of Israel!
Give ear, O house of the king!
For yours is the judgment,
Because you have been a snare to Mizpah
And a net spread on Tabor.
2 The revolters are deeply involved in slaughter,
Though I rebuke them all.
3 I know Ephraim,
And Israel is not hidden from Me;
For now, O Ephraim, you commit harlotry;
Israel is defiled.
4 “They do not direct their deeds
Toward turning to their God,
For the spirit of harlotry is in their midst,
And they do not know the LORD.
5 The pride of Israel testifies to his face;
Therefore Israel and Ephraim stumble in their iniquity;
Judah also stumbles with them.
6 “With their flocks and herds
They shall go to seek the LORD,
But they will not find Him;
He has withdrawn Himself from them.
7 They have dealt treacherously with the LORD,
For they have begotten pagan children.
Now a New Moon shall devour them and their heritage.
8 “Blow the ram’s horn in Gibeah,
The trumpet in Ramah!
Cry aloud at Beth Aven,
‘Look behind you, O Benjamin!’
9 Ephraim shall be desolate in the day of rebuke;
Among the tribes of Israel I make known what is sure.
10 “The princes of Judah are like those who remove a landmark;
I will pour out My wrath on them like water.
11 Ephraim is oppressed and broken in judgment,
Because he willingly walked by human precept.
12 Therefore I will be to Ephraim like a moth,
And to the house of Judah like rottenness.
13 “When Ephraim saw his sickness,
And Judah saw his wound,
Then Ephraim went to Assyria
And sent to King Jareb;
Yet he cannot cure you,
Nor heal you of your wound.
14 For I will be like a lion to Ephraim,
And like a young lion to the house of Judah.
I, even I, will tear them and go away;
I will take them away, and no one shall rescue.
15 I will return again to My place
Till they acknowledge their offense.
Then they will seek My face;
In their affliction they will earnestly seek Me.”
This chapter is devoted to Hosea's prophecy against the sin of the Northern Kingdom known as Israel. As stated above, sometimes the Northern Kingdom is referred to as Ephraim, one of the Northern Tribes. Their spiritual leadership, the two-calf priests, are clearly implicated in verse 1. There's the spiritual harlotry in Hosea 5:3, "I know Ephraim, And Israel is not hidden from Me; For now, O Ephraim, you commit harlotry; Israel is defiled." The resulting consequences are seen in verses 4-9. The civil leadership of Israel is indicted in verse 10. They will be chastised "Till they acknowledge their offense. Then they will seek My face;" (verse 15). They did not acknowledge their sins and fell to the Assyrians in 721 B.C. Verse 5 says, "Judah also stumbles with them." Jerusalem itself (within Judah) did not fall until 586 B.C. (to the Babylonians), but the rest of the land of Judah (Southern Kingdom) did fall prey to the Assyrians along with the inhabitants of the Northern Kingdom.
What about repentance? (Hosea 6:1-3)
1 Come, and let us return to the LORD;
For He has torn, but He will heal us;
He has stricken, but He will bind us up.
2 After two days He will revive us;
On the third day He will raise us up,
That we may live in His sight.
3 Let us know,
Let us pursue the knowledge of the LORD.
His going forth is established as the morning;
He will come to us like the rain,
Like the latter and former rain to the earth.
Verses 1-3 have been at the center of significant prophetic discussion for those who insist upon setting a time table for the second coming of Jesus Christ. There are your controversial words in verse 2, "After two days He will revive us; On the third day He will raise us up." What does that mean? Many have coupled Hosea 6:2 with II Peter 3:8 (see notes), "But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." They contend that, because of the precedent of standardizing God's time in II Peter 3:8, the "two days" in verse 2 really means 2,000 years. Therefore it is believed by some that the second coming of Jesus Christ will take place after 2,000 years from whatever the beginning point is in verse 2. Ahhhhh...here's our first big obstacle. If you marry Hosea 6:2 with II Peter 3:8 (and I don't), you then have a doctrine that says Israel will be revived "after two days," but from when - the fall of Israel in 721 B.C. or the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C.? Or perhaps the countdown should start at the birth of Jesus...or perhaps his death. Maybe the countdown should start at the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Theories abound...each selecting one of the events listed here as the starting point for the countdown of verse 2. One more variable is to be considered here: What kind of years are we talking about, actual or prophetic? An actual solar year is 365.2522 days long, while prophecy often uses 360-day years for prophetic purposes. With 360-day years, 1,000 years would actually be 986 solar years.
One theory with which I am familiar counts from the crucifixion of Jesus which they calculate to be 33 A.D. Add to that date 1,972 years (986 x 2) and you get year 2005. Whoa...that just happens to be the exact year in which I am writing this paragraph for the first time! In addition to the basic assumption that Hosea 6:2 and II Peter 3:8 (see notes) are married to each other, there's another big problem here with this theory - the calendar itself. Our years today are rendered (theoretically) from the birth of Jesus, as calculated by a Catholic monk who lived in the 6th century A.D. by the name of Dionysius Exiguus. In preparing this for the Roman Catholic Church, Dionysius overlooked two significant pieces of data in his calculations. His first oversight was that Herod was still living when Jesus was born, a Biblical fact (Matthew 2, see notes). That's the reason why reference books and Bibles generally render the birth of Jesus at 4 B.C.; that's the latest Herod could have died according to the calendar created by Dionysius. However, there was one more oversight - year 0. In his calculations, Dionysius counted only a single year between 1 B.C. and 1 A.D.; in reality, there are two. That being the case, it is accepted by nearly all Bible scholars that Jesus could not have been crucified later than 30 A.D. As you can see, those who are convinced that Hosea 6:2 and II Peter 3:8 (see notes) are to be taken together have a problem with prophetic years being counted from the crucifixion of Jesus. That period of time actually concluded by no later than 2002. As far as using the crucifixion of Jesus as the starting point, that part of the theory does make sense, inasmuch as Daniel's prophecy in Daniel 9:24-27 (see notes) does reference the crucifixion as a significant event in Israel's future.
But wait! Some say that the countdown should have started in 70 A.D. at the destruction of the temple. That theory is particularly problematic in that Israel's reality didn't significantly change in 70 A.D. They were, for all effective purposes, under Roman domination before and after 70 A.D.; they had been under a foreign entity's rule since 586 B.C. True, there were a handful of years of Jewish rebellion between 586 B.C. and 70 A.D., but nothing that established Israel as its own self-governing nation.
In my thinking, the beginning of the countdown for Hosea 6:2 is not the biggest problem for the Hosea 6:2/II Peter 3:8 theorists; the exegesis of the verse itself is the biggest problem. Two Hebrew prepositions are used to establish a time frame in that verse, "min" (after) and "be" (on, or KJV "in") ie. "after two days" and "on the third day." Both are accurate renderings of their respective Hebrew prepositions. That being the case, if one considers the Hosea 6:2/II Peter 3:8 linkage proposition here as fact, then after 2,000 years and on (or in) the next 1,000 years is the correct way to understand Hosea 6:2. That provides a 1,000-year latitude for fulfillment. Thus, for the theory cited above to be accurately rendered, "in (on) the third day" could be understood to be any time from 2002 A.D. until 2988 A.D., if one renders the crucifixion as the starting point. Let's face it; a 986-year window takes all the fun out of that prophecy for those of us who are living at the beginning of that so-rendered "third day."
In summary, it doesn't seem likely to me that Peter intended II Peter 3:8 (see notes) to be more than a way of expressing the extent of God's longsuffering in the following verse when he says in II Peter 3:9, "The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance." In other words, how does one explain what's taking God so long in verse 9? Well...verse 8 does; with God, it's not really very long at all. It would seem to be a significant exegetical stretch to make it say more than that.
So...what does Hosea 6:2 mean then? Well...that's a stumper, but let me tell you what I think Hosea may be expressing. Israel, as a nation, died in 586 B.C. There's little question about verse 3 there; it speaks of the restoration and Messianic rule in the yet-future millennium. The beginning of the return of the exiles in 535 B.C. to their land did not meet the criteria of Messianic rule; it must be a reference to the millennium. That being the case, Hosea compares the nation of Israel to one who is dead. While the body is intact, resurrection seems possible, as in the resurrection of the boy at the hand of Elisha in II Kings 4 (see notes). However, when decay sets in on the third day, resurrection begins to seem less plausible as in the resurrection of Lazarus in John 11 (see notes) at the hand of Jesus. Who can forget the words of Lazarus' sister, Martha, in John 11:39 when she says, "Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days." I think that Hosea is probably saying that when it seems hopeless for Israel to resurrect, it will happen. With the Messianic component of verse 3, I think these verses were not fulfilled at the declaration of Israel's independence in 1948, although that was a good, healthy start. When Jesus is the Messiah, that will be the fulfillment. Now, in the year 2013, I'm looking with anticipation at the geopolitical turmoil in the Middle East.
Those folks in Israel just didn't realize what they had (Hosea 6:4-7:16)
6:4 “O Ephraim, what shall I do to you?
O Judah, what shall I do to you?
For your faithfulness is like a morning cloud,
And like the early dew it goes away.
5 Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets,
I have slain them by the words of My mouth;
And your judgments are like light that goes forth.
6 For I desire mercy and not sacrifice,
And the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.
7 “But like men they transgressed the covenant;
There they dealt treacherously with Me.
8 Gilead is a city of evildoers
And defiled with blood.
9 As bands of robbers lie in wait for a man,
So the company of priests murder on the way to Shechem;
Surely they commit lewdness.
10 I have seen a horrible thing in the house of Israel:
There is the harlotry of Ephraim;
Israel is defiled.
11 Also, O Judah, a harvest is appointed for you,
When I return the captives of My people.7:1 “When I would have healed Israel,
Then the iniquity of Ephraim was uncovered,
And the wickedness of Samaria.
For they have committed fraud;
A thief comes in;
A band of robbers takes spoil outside.
2 They do not consider in their hearts
That I remember all their wickedness;
Now their own deeds have surrounded them;
They are before My face.
3 They make a king glad with their wickedness,
And princes with their lies.
4 “They are all adulterers.
Like an oven heated by a baker—
He ceases stirring the fire after kneading the dough,
Until it is leavened.
5 In the day of our king
Princes have made him sick, inflamed with wine;
He stretched out his hand with scoffers.
6 They prepare their heart like an oven,
While they lie in wait;
Their baker sleeps all night;
In the morning it burns like a flaming fire.
7 They are all hot, like an oven,
And have devoured their judges;
All their kings have fallen.
None among them calls upon Me.
8 “Ephraim has mixed himself among the peoples;
Ephraim is a cake unturned.
9 Aliens have devoured his strength,
But he does not know it;
Yes, gray hairs are here and there on him,
Yet he does not know it.
10 And the pride of Israel testifies to his face,
But they do not return to the LORD their God,
Nor seek Him for all this.
11 “Ephraim also is like a silly dove, without sense—
They call to Egypt,
They go to Assyria.
12 Wherever they go, I will spread My net on them;
I will bring them down like birds of the air;
I will chastise them
According to what their congregation has heard.
13 “Woe to them, for they have fled from Me!
Destruction to them,
Because they have transgressed against Me!
Though I redeemed them,
Yet they have spoken lies against Me.
14 They did not cry out to Me with their heart
When they wailed upon their beds.
“They assemble together for grain and new wine,
They rebel against Me;
15 Though I disciplined and strengthened their arms,
Yet they devise evil against Me;
16 They return, but not to the Most High;
They are like a treacherous bow.
Their princes shall fall by the sword
For the cursings of their tongue.
This shall be their derision in the land of Egypt.
This kind of reminds me of the Mom who says, "I give and I give and I give, and what thanks do I get!" Here's Israel starting out with the one true God as their protector, but they were completely ungrateful and turned to the false gods. These two chapters condemn Israel for their lack of confidence in God and their unfaithfulness to him.
Incidentally, pay close attention Hosea 6:6, "For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, And the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings." Hosea is calling for sacrifice, but sacrifice that is based upon proper attitudes toward God - Israel's shortcoming. Jesus quoted this verse in Matthew 9:13 (see notes), "But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice.' For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance." Jesus again quotes this verse in Matthew 12:7 (see notes), "But if you had known what this means, "I desire mercy and not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the guiltless." He uses Hosea's prophecy to rebuke the Pharisees in both passages.
In these two chapters we clearly see an indictment against both Israel and Judah for their idolatry.