Hosea 8

1Yahweh said to me, “Blow [MTY] your trumpet to warn the people! My people have rejected the agreement that I made with them, and they have rebelled against obeying my laws. Therefore, their enemies are swooping down on my people’s country like [SIM] an eagle. 2My Israeli people cry out to me, Our God, we know that you are our God!’ 3But because the Israeli people have rejected what is good, will pursue them. 4The Israel people appointed their last three kings, but they did not ask me if I agreed to what they were doing. They chose their own leaders without asking if I would approve of them. They used their own silver and gold to make for themselves idols, and doing that led them to be destroyed. 5You people of Samaria, throw away your idol that resembles a calf! I am extremely angry with you people! How long [RHQ] will you do things that cause you to be unacceptable to me? 6Someone in Israel made that idol for you; but I am God and it is not. So that idol of a calf in Samaria must be smashed to pieces. 7The foolish thing that the people of Israel have done is like [MET] trying to plant wind; but what they harvest will be like [MET] a whirlwind. So the grain that they planted will have no heads on the stalks, and as a result there will be no grain from which to make flour. And if it did produce good grain, foreigners would come and steal it. 8The people of Israel will be defeated [MET] by their enemies; they will be scattered among other nations and become worthless. 9Like [MET] donkeys that are looking for mates, they have requested help from Assyria; they paid money to the leaders of Assyria in order to persuade those leaders to protect them. 10But although they have agreed to pay money each year to the leaders of those countries, I will soon gather them together to punish them. The great King of Assyria will cause them to suffer greatly. 11Although the people of Israel built many altars to present offerings to their idols to take away their guilt for sinning, those altars have become places where they commit more sins. 12I wrote many laws for them, but they disregarded them, saying that they did not have to obey them because they were different from laws that they had known previously. 13They offer sacrifices to me, and they eat some of the meat of those sacrifices, which is what I permitted them to do. But I, Yahweh, am not pleased with those sacrifices. I remember the evil things that they have done, and I will punish them for the sins that they have committed: I will force them to go to other countries and become slaves like they were [MET] in Egypt.