BROKEN IDOLS
Opening Prayer
I come to your Word today, Lord God, with gratitude, humility, and a desire to learn more of you.
Read HOSEA 8:1–9:9
Israel to Reap the Whirlwind
8 “Put the trumpet to your lips!
An eagle is over the house of the Lord
because the people have broken my covenant
and rebelled against my law.
2 Israel cries out to me,
‘Our God, we acknowledge you!’
3 But Israel has rejected what is good;
an enemy will pursue him.
4 They set up kings without my consent;
they choose princes without my approval.
With their silver and gold
they make idols for themselves
to their own destruction.
5 Samaria, throw out your calf-idol!
My anger burns against them.
How long will they be incapable of purity?
6 They are from Israel!
This calf—a metalworker has made it;
it is not God.
It will be broken in pieces,
that calf of Samaria.
7 “They sow the wind
and reap the whirlwind.
The stalk has no head;
it will produce no flour.
Were it to yield grain,
foreigners would swallow it up.
8 Israel is swallowed up;
now she is among the nations
like something no one wants.
9 For they have gone up to Assyria
like a wild donkey wandering alone.
Ephraim has sold herself to lovers.
10 Although they have sold themselves among the nations,
I will now gather them together.
They will begin to waste away
under the oppression of the mighty king.
11 “Though Ephraim built many altars for sin offerings,
these have become altars for sinning.
12 I wrote for them the many things of my law,
but they regarded them as something foreign.
13 Though they offer sacrifices as gifts to me,
and though they eat the meat,
the Lord is not pleased with them.
Now he will remember their wickedness
and punish their sins:
They will return to Egypt.
14 Israel has forgotten their Maker
and built palaces;
Judah has fortified many towns.
But I will send fire on their cities
that will consume their fortresses.”
Punishment for Israel
9 Do not rejoice, Israel;
do not be jubilant like the other nations.
For you have been unfaithful to your God;
you love the wages of a prostitute
at every threshing floor.
2 Threshing floors and winepresses will not feed the people;
the new wine will fail them.
3 They will not remain in the Lord’s land;
Ephraim will return to Egypt
and eat unclean food in Assyria.
4 They will not pour out wine offerings to the Lord,
nor will their sacrifices please him.
Such sacrifices will be to them like the bread of mourners;
all who eat them will be unclean.
This food will be for themselves;
it will not come into the temple of the Lord.
5 What will you do on the day of your appointed festivals,
on the feast days of the Lord?
6 Even if they escape from destruction,
Egypt will gather them,
and Memphis will bury them.
Their treasures of silver will be taken over by briers,
and thorns will overrun their tents.
7 The days of punishment are coming,
the days of reckoning are at hand.
Let Israel know this.
Because your sins are so many
and your hostility so great,
the prophet is considered a fool,
the inspired person a maniac.
8 The prophet, along with my God,
is the watchman over Ephraim,[a]
yet snares await him on all his paths,
and hostility in the house of his God.
9 They have sunk deep into corruption,
as in the days of Gibeah.
God will remember their wickedness
and punish them for their sins.
Footnotes
- Hosea 9:8 Or The prophet is the watchman over Ephraim, / the people of my God
New International Version (NIV)Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Reflect
How are people in your country (community, church) being hurt because they have put something/someone else in God’s place?People said that they acknowledged God. But their lives told a different story (8:1–4). God’s ways were rejected. Self-rules were being followed; people chose their own priorities without consulting God. They regarded silver and gold as their own, turning it into their gods (8:6). What parallels do we see in our own societies? Even, perhaps, in our churches? Such behavior brings brokenness and failure. It isn’t just that God was angry with their faithlessness; they were responsible themselves for the degradation and want in which they found themselves (8:7–9).
They’d sown the wind; now came the whirlwind (8:7)—defeat, oppression, and ignominy. Like a prostitute, God’s people had sold themselves (8:9). Their many altars were not signs of repentance; they were caught up in the sinful practices of idolatrous culture (8:11). God’s own words and laws were foreign to them (8:12). They had forgotten their Maker—but God remembered their sin (8:13, 14). Unfaithfulness to him brought its own punishment. The wages of ‘prostitution’ did not satisfy (9:1, 2). There was never enough—and half-hearted tokens of God-worship were defiled by death (‘bread of mourners’) (9:4). Those who continued to speak up for God were mocked (9:7, 8), but there would be a reckoning (9:9).
Apply
Take time to grieve society’s rejection of God.
Closing prayer
You first, you only, Lord God Almighty, there is no one like you. Help me to turn from anything or anyone that would take me away from my walk with you.
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