Chapter 12

¹ Ephraim has compassed me with falsehood, and the house of Israel and Judah with ungodliness: [but] now God knows them, and they shall be called God’s holy people.

Hos 12:1

² But Ephraim is an evil spirit, he has chased the east wind all the day: he has multiplied empty and vain things, and made a covenant with the Assyrians, and oil has gone in the way of traffic into Egypt. ³ And the Lord [has] a controversy with Judah, in order to punish Jacob: according to his ways and according to his practices will he recompense him.

Hos 12:2-3

⁴ He took his brother by the heel in the womb, and in his labors he had power with God. ⁵ And he prevailed with the angel and was strong: they wept, and entreated me: they found me in the house of Aven, and there [a word] was spoken to them. ⁶ But the Lord God Almighty shall be his memorial. ⁷ Thou therefore shalt return to thy God: keep thou mercy and judgment, and draw nigh to thy God continually.

Hos 12:4-7

⁸ [As for] Canaan, in his hand is a balance of unrighteousness: he has loved to tyrannize. ⁹ And Ephraim said, Nevertheless I am rich, I have found refreshment to myself. None of his labors shall be found [available] to him, by reason of the sins which he has committed. ¹⁰ But I the Lord thy God brought thee up out of the land of Egypt: I will yet cause thee to dwell in tabernacles, according to the days of the feast. ¹¹ And I will speak to the prophets, and I have multiplied visions, and by the means of the prophets I was represented. ¹² If Gilead exists not, then the chiefs in Gilead when they sacrificed were false, and their altars were as heaps on the ground of the field.

Hos 12:8-12

¹³ And Jacob retreated into the plain of Syria, and Israel served for a wife, and waited for a wife. ¹⁴ And the Lord brought Israel out of the land of Egypt by a prophet, and by a prophet was he preserved. ¹⁵ Ephraim was angry and excited, therefore his blood shall be poured out upon him, and the Lord shall recompense to him his reproach.

Hos 12:13-15