Africa Study Bible Sampler - Flipbook - Page 60
59
“For your love vanishes like the morning
mist
and disappears like dew in the
sunlight.
5 I sent my prophets to cut you to pieces—
to slaughter you with my words,
with judgements as inescapable as
light.
6 I want you to show love,*
not offer sacrifices.
I want you to know me*
more than I want burnt offerings.
7 But like Adam,* you broke my
covenant
and betrayed my trust.
“Gilead is a city of sinners,
tracked with footprints of blood.
9 Priests form bands of robbers,
waiting in ambush for their victims.
They murder travellers along the road to
Shechem
and practise every kind of sin.
10 Yes, I have seen something horrible in
Ephraim and Israel:
My people are defiled by prostituting
themselves with other gods!
8
11
“O Judah, a harvest of punishment is
also waiting for you,
though I wanted to restore the
fortunes of my people.
Israel’s Love for Wickedness
1 “I want to heal Israel, but its* sins are
too great.
Samaria is filled with liars.
Thieves are on the inside
and bandits on the outside!
2 Its people don’t realise
that I am watching them.
Their sinful deeds are all around them,
and I see them all.
7
6:5
Heb 4:12
6:6
Ps 40:6-8
Mic 6:6-8
*Matt 9:13; 12:7
6:9
Jer 7:9
Ezek 22:9
Hos 4:2
6:11
Jer 51:33
Joel 3:13
7:1
Ezek 24:13
Hos 7:13
7:2
Jer 2:19
Hos 8:13
7:3
Hos 7:5
Mic 7:3
7:4
Jer 9:2; 23:10
7:5
Isa 28:1
7:7
Isa 64:7
7:9
Isa 1:7
7:10
Hos 5:5
7:11
Hos 12:1
7:12
Ezek 12:13
H O S E A 7 : 1 2
“The people entertain the king with
their wickedness,
and the princes laugh at their lies.
4 They are all adulterers,
always aflame with lust.
They are like an oven that is kept hot
while the baker is kneading the
dough.
5 On royal holidays, the princes get drunk
with wine,
carousing with those who mock
them.
6 Their hearts are like an oven
blazing with intrigue.
Their plot smoulders* through the night,
and in the morning it breaks out like a
raging fire.
7 Burning like an oven,
they consume their leaders.
They kill their kings one after another,
and no one cries to me for help.
3
“The people of Israel mingle with
godless foreigners,
making themselves as worthless as a
half-baked cake!
9 Worshipping foreign gods has sapped
their strength,
but they don’t even know it.
Their hair is grey,
but they don’t realise they’re old and
weak.
10 Their arrogance testifies against them,
yet they don’t return to the Lord their
God
or even try to find him.
8
“The people of Israel have become like
silly, witless doves,
first calling to Egypt, then flying to
Assyria for help.
12 But as they fly about,
I will throw my net over them
11
6:6a Greek version translates this Hebrew term as to show mercy. Compare Matt 9:13; 12:7. 6:6b Hebrew to know God.
6:7 Or But
at Adam.
7:1 Hebrew Ephraim’s, referring to the northern kingdom of Israel; similarly in 7:8, 11. 7:6 Hebrew Their baker sleeps.
Applica ti on
A Sincere Heart Is Essential • Hosea 6
When the Israelites understood God’s message of judgement, hearts and saw that their words and actions were not sincere.
they resorted to performing religious rituals. But even though the
God does not delight in our sacrifices when they become
people of Israel seemed to acknowledge their need to repent, rituals without meaning. He is not interested in our Christianity
their desire was not sincere but self-serving. They did not desire a when we live as though we are acting in a play—pretending to
relationship but only wished to avoid pain. The Lord said, “I want be Christians but not sincerely loving God. To avoid play-acting,
you to show love, not offer sacrifices. I want you to know me more we must engage our hearts and minds. Repentance that comes
than I want burnt offerings” (Hosea 6:6). Israel was only trying from your heart will lead to a restoration of your relationship
to negotiate a truce from their sufferings. But God knew their with God.
Read and Be Amazed • Hosea 6:1-6
What can we say about Hosea 6:1-6? Read it again, and read a wayward, unfaithful wife can only be, “Oh, that we might
it again. We all want to know more about a God who disciplines know the Lord! Let us press on to know him.” Any true child
in order to restore, who wounds only to bring healing. Most of God will be fully and totally motivated to know God better
of us would wish to know a God who is motivated by this when he or she understands the depth of grace, mercy, and
kind of love and to be in the presence of a God like that. Our love like this.
response to a God who loves us sinners as a husband loving