Hosea 4:12-14
The Message
They Make a Picnic Out of Religion
11-14 “Wine and whiskey
leave my people in a stupor.
They ask questions of a dead tree,
expect answers from a sturdy walking stick.
Drunk on sex, they can’t find their way home.
They’ve replaced their God with their genitals.
They worship on the tops of mountains,
make a picnic out of religion.
Under the oaks and elms on the hills
they stretch out and take it easy.
Before you know it, your daughters are whores
and the wives of your sons are sleeping around.
But I’m not going after your whoring daughters
or the adulterous wives of your sons.
It’s the men who pick up the whores that I’m after,
the men who worship at the holy whorehouses—
a stupid people, ruined by whores!
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Hosea 4:12-14
New International Version
12 My people consult a wooden idol,(A)
and a diviner’s rod speaks to them.(B)
A spirit of prostitution(C) leads them astray;(D)
they are unfaithful(E) to their God.
13 They sacrifice on the mountaintops
and burn offerings on the hills,
under oak,(F) poplar and terebinth,
where the shade is pleasant.(G)
Therefore your daughters turn to prostitution(H)
and your daughters-in-law to adultery.(I)
Copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson
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