People of Israel and Judah,
\nwhat can I do with you?
\nYour love for me disappears
\nmore quickly than mist
\nor dew at sunrise.
\nThat\u2019s why I slaughtered you
\nwith the words
\nof my prophets.
\nThat\u2019s why my judgments blazed
\nlike the dawning sun.
\nI\u2019d rather for you to be faithful
\nand to know me
\nthan to offer sacrifices.
\n At a place named Adam,
\nyou betrayed me
\nby breaking our agreement.
\nEveryone in Gilead is evil;
\nyour hands are stained
\nwith the blood of victims.
\nYou priests are like a gang
\nof robbers in ambush.
\nOn the road to Shechem
\nyou murder and commit
\nother horrible crimes.
\nI have seen a terrible thing
\nin Israel\u2014
\nyou are unfaithful
\nand unfit to worship me.
\nPeople of Judah,
\nyour time is coming too. (Hosea 6:4-11)<\/p>\n
Human love can be very fickle, coming and going over the least offense. Hosea had married a prostitute because God told him to, so his wife spent most of her time elsewhere, with other men. She didn\u2019t love him. Likewise, for God: Israel gave him lip service, but her real passion was for the other gods, the ones she really cared about, since she spent all their time with them. <\/p>\n
God listed three places that people had been unfaithful to him: Adam, which was near the Jordan River, Gilead, which was a region near Adam, and Shechem, in central Palestine. The people were guilty of unfaithfulness to God and unfaithfulness to one another. Even the priests, who were supposed to represent God acted like a criminal gang. This was nothing new. Even in the days of Samuel, before Saul became king, the priests had taken advantage of those few people who had come to worship Yahweh. Eli\u2019s sons were not the first and would not be the last to misbehave. But by the time of Hosea, God\u2019s patience was near an end and what he had done to Eli\u2019s sons, with the ark of God captured by the Philistines, he now intended to do to the nation as a whole. Hosea\u2019s wife wound up sold as a slave. He redeemed her from the slave market. Eventually, Israel would become captive, and eventually God would redeem Israel from Babylon. Neither Hosea\u2019s wife nor Israel had done anything to merit redemption. They were both redeemed on account of a love that was not fickle. God\u2019s love for us is not fickle.<\/p>\n
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