Hosea 9 (Listen)

The Lord Will Punish Israel

1   Rejoice not, O Israel!
    Exult not like the peoples;
  for you have played the whore, forsaking your God.
    You have loved a prostitute’s wages
    on all threshing floors.
2   Threshing floor and wine vat shall not feed them,
    and the new wine shall fail them.
3   They shall not remain in the land of the LORD,
    but Ephraim shall return to Egypt,
    and they shall eat unclean food in Assyria.
4   They shall not pour drink offerings of wine to the LORD,
    and their sacrifices shall not please him.
  It shall be like mourners’ bread to them;
    all who eat of it shall be defiled;
  for their bread shall be for their hunger only;
    it shall not come to the house of the LORD.
5   What will you do on the day of the appointed festival,
    and on the day of the feast of the LORD?
6   For behold, they are going away from destruction;
    but Egypt shall gather them;
    Memphis shall bury them.
  Nettles shall possess their precious things of silver;
    thorns shall be in their tents.
7   The days of punishment have come;
    the days of recompense have come;
    Israel shall know it.
  The prophet is a fool;
    the man of the spirit is mad,
  because of your great iniquity
    and great hatred.
8   The prophet is the watchman of Ephraim with my God;
  yet a fowler’s snare is on all his ways,
    and hatred in the house of his God.
9   They have deeply corrupted themselves
    as in the days of Gibeah:
  he will remember their iniquity;
    he will punish their sins.
10   Like grapes in the wilderness,
    I found Israel.
  Like the first fruit on the fig tree
    in its first season,
    I saw your fathers.
  But they came to Baal-peor
    and consecrated themselves to the thing of shame,
    and became detestable like the thing they loved.
11   Ephraim’s glory shall fly away like a bird—
    no birth, no pregnancy, no conception!
12   Even if they bring up children,
    I will bereave them till none is left.
  Woe to them
    when I depart from them!
13   Ephraim, as I have seen, was like a young palm planted in a meadow;
    but Ephraim must lead his children out to slaughter.
14   Give them, O LORD—
    what will you give?
  Give them a miscarrying womb
    and dry breasts.
15   Every evil of theirs is in Gilgal;
    there I began to hate them.
  Because of the wickedness of their deeds
    I will drive them out of my house.
  I will love them no more;
    all their princes are rebels.
16   Ephraim is stricken;
    their root is dried up;
    they shall bear no fruit.
  Even though they give birth,
    I will put their beloved children to death.
17   My God will reject them
    because they have not listened to him;
    they shall be wanderers among the nations.

(ESV)

Proverbs 5 (Listen)

Warning Against Adultery

1   My son, be attentive to my wisdom;
    incline your ear to my understanding,
2   that you may keep discretion,
    and your lips may guard knowledge.
3   For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey,
    and her speech is smoother than oil,
4   but in the end she is bitter as wormwood,
    sharp as a two-edged sword.
5   Her feet go down to death;
    her steps follow the path to Sheol;
6   she does not ponder the path of life;
    her ways wander, and she does not know it.
7   And now, O sons, listen to me,
    and do not depart from the words of my mouth.
8   Keep your way far from her,
    and do not go near the door of her house,
9   lest you give your honor to others
    and your years to the merciless,
10   lest strangers take their fill of your strength,
    and your labors go to the house of a foreigner,
11   and at the end of your life you groan,
    when your flesh and body are consumed,
12   and you say, “How I hated discipline,
    and my heart despised reproof!
13   I did not listen to the voice of my teachers
    or incline my ear to my instructors.
14   I am at the brink of utter ruin
    in the assembled congregation.”
15   Drink water from your own cistern,
    flowing water from your own well.
16   Should your springs be scattered abroad,
    streams of water in the streets?
17   Let them be for yourself alone,
    and not for strangers with you.
18   Let your fountain be blessed,
    and rejoice in the wife of your youth,
19     a lovely deer, a graceful doe.
  Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight;
    be intoxicated always in her love.
20   Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman
    and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?
21   For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD,
    and he ponders all his paths.
22   The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him,
    and he is held fast in the cords of his sin.
23   He dies for lack of discipline,
    and because of his great folly he is led astray.

(ESV)

Psalm 40 (Listen)

My Help and My Deliverer

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.

1   I waited patiently for the LORD;
    he inclined to me and heard my cry.
2   He drew me up from the pit of destruction,
    out of the miry bog,
  and set my feet upon a rock,
    making my steps secure.
3   He put a new song in my mouth,
    a song of praise to our God.
  Many will see and fear,
    and put their trust in the LORD.
4   Blessed is the man who makes
    the LORD his trust,
  who does not turn to the proud,
    to those who go astray after a lie!
5   You have multiplied, O LORD my God,
    your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us;
    none can compare with you!
  I will proclaim and tell of them,
    yet they are more than can be told.
6   In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted,
    but you have given me an open ear.
  Burnt offering and sin offering
    you have not required.
7   Then I said, “Behold, I have come;
    in the scroll of the book it is written of me:
8   I delight to do your will, O my God;
    your law is within my heart.”
9   I have told the glad news of deliverance
    in the great congregation;
  behold, I have not restrained my lips,
    as you know, O LORD.
10   I have not hidden your deliverance within my heart;
    I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation;
  I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness
    from the great congregation.
11   As for you, O LORD, you will not restrain
    your mercy from me;
  your steadfast love and your faithfulness will
    ever preserve me!
12   For evils have encompassed me
    beyond number;
  my iniquities have overtaken me,
    and I cannot see;
  they are more than the hairs of my head;
    my heart fails me.
13   Be pleased, O LORD, to deliver me!
    O LORD, make haste to help me!
14   Let those be put to shame and disappointed altogether
    who seek to snatch away my life;
  let those be turned back and brought to dishonor
    who delight in my hurt!
15   Let those be appalled because of their shame
    who say to me, “Aha, Aha!”
16   But may all who seek you
    rejoice and be glad in you;
  may those who love your salvation
    say continually, “Great is the LORD!”
17   As for me, I am poor and needy,
    but the Lord takes thought for me.
  You are my help and my deliverer;
    do not delay, O my God!

(ESV)