Hosea 4:13–14

⁶¶ The Lord said also unto me in the days of Josiah the king, Hast thou seen that which backsliding Israel hath done? she is gone up upon every high mountain and under every green tree, and there hath played the harlot.

¹³Then shall ye know that I am the Lord, when their slain men shall be among their idols round about their altars, upon every high hill, in all the tops of the mountains, and under every green tree, and under every thick oak, the place where they did offer sweet savour to all their idols.

²⁹For they shall be ashamed of the oaks which ye have desired, and ye shall be confounded for the gardens that ye have chosen.

¹⁷Therefore thus saith the Lord; Thy wife shall be an harlot in the city, and thy sons and thy daughters shall fall by the sword, and thy land shall be divided by line; and thou shalt die in a polluted land: and Israel shall surely go into captivity forth of his land.

¹⁰Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house; because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife.

¹¹Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbour, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun.

¹²For thou didst it secretly: but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun.

¹⁶And of thy garments thou didst take, and deckedst thy high places with divers colours, and playedst the harlot thereupon: the like things shall not come, neither shall it be so.

²⁵Thou hast built thy high place at every head of the way, and hast made thy beauty to be abhorred, and hast opened thy feet to every one that passed by, and multiplied thy whoredoms.

²⁸For when I had brought them into the land, for the which I lifted up mine hand to give it to them, then they saw every high hill, and all the thick trees, and they offered there their sacrifices, and there they presented the provocation of their offering: there also they made their sweet savour, and poured out there their drink offerings.

²⁹Then I said unto them, What is the high place whereunto ye go? And the name thereof is called Bamah unto this day.

²As they called them, so they went from them: they sacrificed unto Baalim, and burned incense to graven images.

¹³And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, wherein she burned incense to them, and she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgat me, saith the Lord.

⁵Enflaming yourselves with idols under every green tree, slaying the children in the valleys under the clifts of the rocks?

⁷Upon a lofty and high mountain hast thou set thy bed: even thither wentest thou up to offer sacrifice.

²⁰¶ For of old time I have broken thy yoke, and burst thy bands; and thou saidst, I will not transgress; when upon every high hill and under every green tree thou wanderest, playing the harlot.

¹³Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the Lord thy God, and hast scattered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree, and ye have not obeyed my voice, saith the Lord.

⁹If mine heart have been deceived by a woman, or if I have laid wait at my neighbour’s door;

¹⁰Then let my wife grind unto another, and let others bow down upon her.

²³And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.

²⁴Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:

²⁵Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

²⁶For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:

²⁷And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

²⁸And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;

¹⁶What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh.

¹⁸Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:

¹HEAR the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel: for the Lord hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land.

²³For they also built them high places, and images, and groves, on every high hill, and under every green tree.

²⁴And there were also sodomites in the land: and they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the Lord cast out before the children of Israel.

¹²And he took away the sodomites out of the land, and removed all the idols that his fathers had made.

⁷And he brake down the houses of the sodomites, that were by the house of the Lord, where the women wove hangings for the grove.

¹⁰Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.

¹⁷¶ There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel.

⁸But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.

⁹Who is wise, and he shall understand these things? prudent, and he shall know them? for the ways of the Lord are right, and the just shall walk in them: but the transgressors shall fall therein.

¹⁷Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone.

⁵Therefore shalt thou fall in the day, and the prophet also shall fall with thee in the night, and I will destroy thy mother.

⁶¶ My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.

⁵¶ Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.

¹⁸They have not known nor understood: for he hath shut their eyes, that they cannot see; and their hearts, that they cannot understand.

¹⁹And none considereth in his heart, neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say, I have burned part of it in the fire; yea, also I have baked bread upon the coals thereof; I have roasted flesh, and eaten it: and shall I make the residue thereof an abomination? shall I fall down to the stock of a tree?

²⁰He feedeth on ashes: a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?

¹¹Yea, they are greedy dogs which can never have enough, and they are shepherds that cannot understand: they all look to their own way, every one for his gain, from his quarter.

⁴³Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word.

⁵Evil men understand not judgment: but they that seek the Lord understand all things.

¹¹There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.