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15 Although I trained and strengthened them,[a]
they plot evil against me!
16 They turn to Baal;[b]
they are like an unreliable bow.
Their leaders will fall by the sword
because their prayers to Baal[c] have made me angry.
So people will disdain them in the land of Egypt.[d]

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Footnotes

  1. Hosea 7:15 tn Heb “their arms” (so NAB, NRSV).
  2. Hosea 7:16 tc The MT reads the enigmatic יָשׁוּבוּ לֹא עָל (yashuvu loʾ ʿal), which is taken variously: “they turn, but not upward” (NASB); “they do not turn to the Most High” (NIV); and “they return, but not to the most High” (KJV). The BHS editors suggest יָשׁוּבוּ לַבַּעַל (yashuvu labbaʿal, “they turn to Baal”; so RSV) or יָשׁוּבוּ לַבְּלִיַּעַל (yashuvu labbeliyyaʿal, “they turn to Belial”), which is reflected by the LXX.
  3. Hosea 7:16 tn Heb “because their tongue.” The term “tongue” is used figuratively as a metonymy of cause (tongue) for effect (prayers to Baal).
  4. Hosea 7:16 tn Heb “this [will] be for scorn in the land of Egypt”; cf. NIV “they will be ridiculed (NAB “shall be mocked”) in the land of Egypt.”